PH  »i;    II 

llilil 


BILL    SEWALL'S 
STORY   OF  T.  R. 


THEODORE   ROOSEVELT   IN    1883 


BILL    SEWALL'S 
STORY   OF    r. 

-  By 

WILLIAM  WINGATE  SEWALL 

With  an  Introduction  by 

HERMANN   HAGEDORN 

Illustrated 


"When  you  get  among  the  rough, 
poor,  honestt  hard-working  people 
they  are  almost  ally  both  men  and 
women,  believers  in  Roosevelt" 

W.  W.  Sewall 


»     ,*,  i    J  :r*'»  :•»;. 

J>>S>J»J3»J  *»'*',! 

Harper  &  Brothers   Publishers 

New  York   and   London 


BILL  SEW  ALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 


Copyright,  1919,   by   Harper  &  Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  September,  1919 

I-T 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  IN  1883 Frontispiece 

WlLMOT   DOW   IN    1884 Facing  p.       6 

WILLIAM  WINGATE  SEWALL  IN  1884     ...      "         6 
THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AT  TWENTY-ONE  WITH 

Dow  AND  SEWALL  IN  MAINE     ....      "          6 
ROOSEVELT'S  LETTER  TO  SEWALL  WRITTEN  IN 

1884 "         14 

ELKHORN  RANCH  FROM   ACROSS  THE   LITTLE 

MISSOURI "        18 

THE  RANCH-HOUSE       "        18 

THE  STABLES  AND  CORRALS  AT  ELKHORN  RANCH      "        38 

THE  "WOMEN-FOLKS" "        38 

ROOSEVELT'S    CONTRACT    WITH   SEWALL    AND 

Dow        "        40 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  ON  HIS  FAVORITE  HORSE, 

"MANITOU" "        42 

ROOSEVELT  GUARDING  FINNEGAN  AND  COM 
PANY  "  70 

Dow  AND  SEWALL  IN  THE  DUGOUT  WITH  THE 

LOOT  OF  THE  THIEVES "  70 

THE  RANCH- WAGON,  WITH  "OLD  MAN"  TOMP- 
KINS  DRIVING  AND  DOW  ON  THE  WHITE 
HORSE "  86 

ELKHORN  RANCH-HOUSE       "        90 

COWPUNCHERS  CONNECTED  WITH  THE  ROOSE- 


VELT   OUTFIT 9O 


403195' 


INTRODUCTION 

OF  all  explorers  in  strange  and  half -dis 
covered  countries,  the  historian  is  the  most 
eager  and  indomitable  to  follow  rivers  to  their 
sources  in  the  hills.  Each  "crick"  is  impor 
tant  to  him,  and  the  ultimate  spring  where  it 
bubbles  up  from  the  ground  has  to  him  some 
of  the  glory  of  the  wide  and  majestic  river 
whose  origin  it  is. 

Historians,  seeking  one  after  the  other  for 
centuries  to  come  to  explore  the  mysteries  of 
the  paradoxical  career  of  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
will  have  more  to  say  of  William  Wingate 
Sewall  than  his  Maine  neighbors  or  even  the 
statesmen,  scientists,  and  men  of  letters  who 
drew  him  into  their  councils,  when  the  time 
came  for  choosing  a  national  memorial  to  a 
great  President,  are  likely  now  to  realize. 
For  "Bill"  Sewall  was  guide,  philosopher  and 
friend  to  Theodore  Roosevelt  in  that  period 
in  his  life  when  a  man's  character,  emerging 


INTRODUCTION 

from  the  shelter  of  home  traditions  and  in 
herited  frgjjgl^  is  most  like  wax  tinder  the 
contact  of  men  and  events.  For,  unlike  Mi 
nerva,  Theodore  Roosevelt  did  not  spring  full- 
armed  from  the  head  of  Jove.  Like  other 
young  men  of  his  age,  he  had  an  impression 
able  mind.  The  photographs  of  him  taken 
dming  his  college  days  reveal  possibilities  of 
development,  strange  to  those  who  knew  the 
great  man  only  in  his  developed  maturity. 
There  is  a  hint  of  stubborn  dogmatism  in 
one  photograph,  almost  incredible  to  men 
who  knew  his  later  contempt  for  mere  theory 
5Mid  IMS  persistent  eagerness  in  SBEJring  advice  ; 
there  is,  in  another  photograph  of  him  in 
cowboy  costume,  a  romantic,  dieamy,  aJmnct 
strain,  difficult  to  associate  with 


the  clear-eyed  pursuit  of  the  naked  fact 
which  characterized  Theodore  Roosevelt's 
public  career.  Besides,  he  wore  side-burns  at 
a  time  when  side-burns  were  already  being 
looked  upon  as  an  effete  relic  of  past  ages. 
It  was  a  frail,  bookish  boy  with  whiskers, 
Ammutg  of  King  Olaf  and  other  long-dead 
fighting-men,  who  came  to  Maine  at  nineteen 
and  struck  up  a  frSfntfehip  with  the  brawny 


INTRODUCTION 

backwoodsman  of  thirty-four.  To  the  city 
boy  the  backwoodsman  was  the  living 
symbol  of  all  that  he  had  admired  most  in 
the  heroes  of  the  past — sea-rover  and  warrior, 
colonist  and  pioneer — strength  of  arm  and 
strength  of  heart,  fearlessness  and  resource, 
self-respect  and  self-reliance,  tenderness, 
patriotism,  service,  and  the  consciousness  of 
equality  with  all  men.  Theodore  Roosevelt 
poured  out  his  opinions  and  aspirations  to 
him,  and,  hour  on  hour,  tramping  through 
the  woods  or  noiselessly  speeding  over  the 
waters  of  Mattawamkeag,  they  threshed  out 
with  grave  seriousness  the  problems  of  life 
and  death  and  politics  and  personal  conduct. 
The  boy  had  an  unusual  amount  of  book- 
learning;  the  man  had  a  vast  fund  of  plain 
common  sense.  They  admired  each  other 
immensely,  and  while  Roosevelt,  footing  the 
bills  of  the  expeditions,  was  inevitably  boss 
and  felt  free  to  express  his  mind  as  such,  on 
occasion  Sewall  was  not  hesitant  in  "going 
for  Theodore  bow-legged,"  when  he  thought 
that  the  younger  man  needed  an  application 
of  unadorned  Maine  English. 

The  friendship,  established  in  Maine  and 


INTRODUCTION 

sealed  and  strengthened  by  joys  and  hard 
ships  shared  in  Dakota,  endured  unwavering 
ly  through  the  changing  political  fortunes  of 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  to  the  day  of  his  death. 
No  touch  of  condescension  on  the  one  side,  no 
hint  of  subserviency  on  the  other,  disturbed 
the  calm  depths  of  their  friendship.  Sewall 
was  an  honored  guest  at  the  White  House,  as 
Roosevelt  had  once  been  an  honored  guest 
at  the  pleasant  house  in  Island  Falls.  They 
met  rarely,  at  intervals  of  years,  but  when 
they  met  they  met  as  equals,  even  though 
one  was  a  woodsman  and  guide  and  the 
other  was  President  of  the  United  States. 

"There  is  no  one  who  could  more  clearly 
give  the  account  of  me,  when  I  was  a  young 
man  and  ever  since,"  Theodore  Roosevelt 
wrote  Sewall  a  year  before  his  death  in  a 
letter  commending  to  "Friend  William" 
the  writer  of  these  introductory  lines,  "than 
you.  I  want  you  to  tell  him  everything, 
good,  bad  and  indifferent.  Don't  spare  me 
the  least  bit.  Give  him  the  very  worst  side 
of  me  you  can  think  of,  and  the  very  best 
side  of  me  that  is  truthful.  I  have  told 
Hagedorn  that  I  thought  you  could  possibly 


INTRODUCTION 

come  nearer  to  putting  him  'next  me/  as  I 
was  seen  by  a  close  friend  who  worked  with 
me  when  I  had  'bark  on'  than  any  one  else 
could.  Tell  him  about  our  snow-shoe  trips; 
tell  him  about  the  ranch.  Tell  him  how  we 
got  Red  Finnegan  and  the  two  other  cattle- 
thieves.  Tell  him  everything." 

That  last  injunction  of  his  old  friend 
"Bill"  Sewall  has  obeyed.  He  has  told 
"everything,"  with  a  sharpness  of  detail 
and  a  simplicity  and  directness  of  narrative 
which  reveals,  on  the  one  hand,  a  memory 
which  many  a  man  half  "Bill"  SewalTs 
years  might  envy,  and,  on  the  other,  suggests 
that  "the  old  Mennonite,"  as  they  still  call 
him  in  Dakota,  has  not  read  his  Bible  in 
vain.  It  is  an  unusual  record  of  an  unusual 
friendship,  which  historians  of  the  future 
will  find  fascinating  for  the  light  which  it 
throws  not  only  on  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
but  on  the  picturesque  figure  of  the  bearded 
woodsman  whom  he  chose  to  be  his  guide 
and  his  friend. 

HERMANN  HAGEDORN. 


DICKINSON,  NORTH  DAKOTA 

June  10,  igiQ 


BILL   SEWALL'S 
STORY   OF  T.  R. 


BILL    SEWALL'S 
STORY   OF    T.  R. 


CHAPTER  I 

HE  came  to  my  house  accidentally,  in  the 
first  place;  it  was  an  accident,  but  a 
very  good  one  for  me.  Two  of  his  cousins, 
Emlen  Roosevelt  and  James  West  Roose 
velt,  were  coming  up  North  from  New  York 
with  Arthur  Cutler  and  Frectock 'Weeks0, 
and  in  the  station  at  Boston  they  happeiietl ' 
to  run  into  an  old  acquaintance  of  Cutler's, 
named  Andrews. 

Cutler,  who  was  a  school-teacher  and  the 
leader  of  the  party,  being  the  eldest,  was 
asked  where  they  were  going.  Cutler  said 
that  they  were  going  up  to  the  woods  of 

Maine. 
2  i 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

"All  right,"  said  Andrews,  "but  if  you 
go  up  there  the  place  for  you  to  go  is  to 
Bill  Sewall's  at  Island  Falls."  You  see,  I 
kept  an  open  house  for  hunters  there,  just 
as  my  father  before  me. 

Cutler  and  his  party  decided  that  they 
would  take  that  advice.  In  those  days  it 
was  quite  an  undertaking  to  get  to  Island 
Falls.  There  was  no  railroad  up  our  way 
then  and  they  had  to  come  thirty  or  forty 
miles  by  team.  But  they  found  me  and  told 
me  what  they  wanted,  and  I  went  with  them. 
They  were  there  about  three  weeks.  I  had 
the  whole  party  to  take  care  of,  not  to  speak 
of  the  camp,  and  altogether  I  had  a  pretty 
busy  time  and  wasn't  able  to  give  them  as 
much  attention  as  I  wanted,  but  they  got 
plenty  yof  trout  grid  went  home  satisfied. 
,  ,  The  next  fall  they  came  again  and  brought 
a  thin,  pale  .youngster  with  bad  eyes  and  a 
weak  heart.  That  was  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

They  had  come  by  way  of  Lake  Matta- 
wamkeag,  and  it  was  about  dark  when  they 
got  there.  Cutler  took  me  off  to  one  side. 
He  said:  "I  want  you  to  take  that  young 
fellow,  Theodore,  I  brought  down,  under  your 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

special  care.  Be  careful  of  him,  see  that  he 
don't  take  too  hard  jaunts  and  does  not  do 
too  much.  He  is  not  very  strong  and  he  has 
got  a  great  deal  of  ambition  and  grit,  and 
if  you  should  take  such  a  tramp  as  you  are 
in  the  habit  of  taking  sometimes,  and  take 
him  with  you,  you  never  would  know  that 
anything  ailed  him.  If  you  should  ask  him 
if  he  was  having  a  good  time  he  would  tell 
you  he  was  having  a  very  good  time;  and 
even  if  he  was  tired  he  would  not  tell  you  so. 
The  first  thing  you  knew  he  would  be  down, 
because  he  would  go  until  he  fell." 

I  took  him  and  I  found  that  that  was  his 
disposition  right  away,  but  he  wasn't  such 
a  weakling  as  Cutler  tried  to  make  out.  We 
traveled  twenty-five  miles  afoot  one  day  on 
that  first  visit  of  his,  which  I  maintain  was 
a  good  fair  walk  for  any  common  man.  We 
hitched  well,  somehow  or  other,  from  the 
start.  He  was  different  from  anybody  that 
I  had  ever  met;  especially,  he  was  fair- 
minded.  He  and  I  agreed  in  our  ideas  of 
fair  play  and  right  and  wrong.  Besides,  he 
was  always  good-natured  and  full  of  fun.  1 
do  not  think  I  ever  remember  him  being 
3 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

"out  of  sorts."     He  did  not  feel  well  some 
times,  but  he  never  would  admit  it. 

I  could  see  not  a  single  thing  that  wasn't 
fine  in  Theodore,  no  qualities  that  I  didn't 
like.  Some  folks  said  that  he  was  head 
strong  and  aggressive,  but  I  never  found  him 
so  except  when  necessary;  and  I've  always 
thought  being  headstrong  and  aggressive,  on 
occasion,  was  a  pretty  good  thing.  He 
wasn't  a  bit  cocky  as  far  as  I  could  see, 
though  others  thought  so.  I  will  say  that 
he  was  not  remarkably  cautious  about  ex 
pressing  his  opinion.  I  found  that  he  was 
willing  at  any  time  to  give  every  man  a  fair 
hearing,  but  he  insisted  even  then  on  making 
his  own  conclusions.  He  had  strong  con 
victions  and  was  willing  to  stand  up  for 
them.  He  wasn't  conservative,  but  this  con 
servative  business  is  something  that  I  haven't 
much  patience  with;  it's  timidity.  I  don't 
believe  in  diplomacy.  I  believe  in  talking 
things  straight.  It  is  about  time  for  that  word 
diplomacy  to  be  wiped  out.  I  call  it  hypoc 
risy.  Talleyrand  was  great  in  diplomacy, 
as  I  read  of  him,  but  there  could  be  nothing 
more  deceitful  and  hypocritical  than  he  was. 
4 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

Theodore  was  about  eighteen  when  he 
first  came  to  Maine.  He  had  an  idea  that 
he  was  going  to  be  a  naturalist  and  used  to 
carry  with  him  a  little  bottle  of  arsenic  and 
go  around  picking  up  bugs.  He  didn't  shoot 
any  big  game,  just  ducks  and  partridges. 
We  did  a  bit  of  trout -fishing.  Theodore  was 
never  very  fond  of  that.  Somehow  he 
didn't  like  to  sit  still  so  long. 

That  fall  I  had  engaged  another  guide,  so 
that  the  party  would  be  a  little  better  pro 
vided  for.  Wilmot  Dow  was  his  name.  He 
was  a  nephew  of  mine,  a  better  guide  than 
I  was,  better  hunter,  better  fisherman,  and 
the  best  shot  of  any  man  in  the  country. 
He  took  care  of  the  rest  of  the  party  himself 
mostly.  I  was  with  Theodore  all  of  the  time. 
At  the  end  of  the  week  I  told  Dow  that  I 
had  got  a  different  fellow  to  guide  from  what 
I  had  ever  seen  before.  I  had  never  seen 
anybody  that  was  like  him,  and  I  have  held 
that  opinion  ever  since. 

Of  course  he  did  not  understand  the  woods, 

but  on  every  other  subject  he  was  posted. 

The  reason  that  he  knew  so  much  about 

everything,  I  found,  was  that  wherever  he 

5 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

went  he  got  right  in  with  the  people.  Once 
we  stayed  in  a  lumber-camp  with  quite  a 
large  crew  of  men,  some  of  them  older  men 
than  generally  worked  in  the  woods;  old 
woodsmen,  they  were,  who  did  not  know 
anything  but  the  woods.  I  doubt  if  they 
could  have  written  their  names,  but  they 
knew  the  woods,  the  whole  of  them,  and  they 
knew  all  of  the  hardships  connected  with 
pioneer  life.  They  had  gone  in  up  to  Ox 
Bow  on  the  Aroostook  River,  and  it  was  a 
long  ways  from  the  road.  The  river  was 
their  road,  and  they  had  made  their  way 
along  it  and  had  managed  to  live  there, 
mostly  by  hunting.  Theodore  enjoyed  them 
immensely.  He  told  me  after  he  left  the 
camp  how  glad  he  was  that  he  had  met  them. 
He  said  that  he  could  read  about  such  things, 
but  here  he  had  got  first-hand  accounts  of 
backwoods  life  from  the  men  who  had  lived 
it  and  knew  what  they  were  talking  about. 
Even  then  he  was  quick  to  find  the  real  man 
in  very  simple  men  He  didn't  look  for  a 
brilliant  man  when  he  found  me;  he  valued 
me  for  what  I  was  worth. 

The  next  fall  he  was  up  again.     We  went 
6 


WILMOT   DOW 
IN    1884 


WiLUAM  W1JSTGATE  SEWALL 
VIN    1884 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AT  TWENTY-ONE 
WITH  DOW  AND  SEWALL  IN  MAINE 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

up  to  the  Munsungun  Lakes  at  the  head  of 
the  Aroostook  River  and  into  the  east 
branch  of  the  Penobscot,  that  they  called 
Trout  Brook.  On  the  way  we  had  to  ford 
the  rough  -  bottomed  Catasacoka  stream 
which  comes  down  from  the  mountains  and 
is  very  rapid.  We  did  not  want  to  get  our 
feet  wet,  so  we  all  took  off  our  shoes  and 
stockings.  His  feet  were  pretty  tender  and 
the  stones  hurt  him.  He  crippled  himself 
some  way,  and  in  trying  to  favor  his  feet  he 
dropped  one  of  his  shoes.  The  rapid  current 
took  it  into  white  water  and  it  got  in  among 
the  stones  some  way,  so  that  he  could  not 
find  it.  He  had  a  pair  of  thin  Indian  moc 
casins  with  him  that  he  had  taken  for  slip 
pers,  and  said  that  he  thought  he  would  wear 
them,  and  he  did  wear  them  and  went  up 
into  the  mountains.  He  might  just  as  well 
have  gone  in  his  stocking  feet,  only  the 
stockings  would  have  worn  off  and  the  moc 
casins  did  not  entirely;  but  the  protection 
would  have  been  about  the  same.  It  must 
have  been  pretty  tedious  going,  but  he  made 
no  complaint  about  that. 
On  this  trip  Theodore  and  I  had  a  pirogue, 
7 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

a  sort  of  dugout.  I  had  to  drag  it  a  good 
deal  and  Theodore  had  a  great  respect  for 
my  strength.  One  morning  it  was  raining 
and  I  said  that  I  was  sorry.  Theodore  could 
not  see  what  difference  it  made,  since  we 
got  wet,  anyway.  But  by  the  end  of  the 
day  he  saw  the  difference,  not  being  able  to 
see  where  the  treading  was  good. 

Theodore  was  feeling  spry  that  night  and 
wanted  to  chop.  I  told  him  that  he  must 
not.  He  didn't  quite  like  that. 

"Why?"  he  asked. 

"Because  if  you  do  use  that  ax,"  I  told 
him, ' '  first  thing  you  know  you  will  be  cutting 
yourself.  Then  I  will  have  to  not  only  pull 
the  dugout,  but  the  dugout  and  you  in  it." 

He  didn't  use  the  ax. 

Theodore  enjoyed  that  trip.  I  have  a 
letter  still  that  I  got  from  Cutler  after  he 
got  back  home.  "It  takes  Theodore  two 
hours  to  tell  the  story  of  the  Munsungun 
Lakes  trip,"  he  wrote.  "And  then,  after  all, 
it  doesn't  seem  to  have  amounted  to  much, 
except  a  good  hard  time." 

Theodore  Roosevelt  was  up  again  next  fall 
and  we  took  a  trip  up  to  Mt.  Katahdin.  The 
8 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

following  spring  he  graduated  from  college 
and  shortly  afterward  he  married  and  went 
to  Europe.  I  had  several  letters  from  him 
while  he  was  there.  One  of  them  I  prize 
especially.  He  said  that  he  was  having  a 
good  time  and  was  treated  very  nicely  every 
where,  but  the  more  he  saw  of  foreign  lands 
the  more  thankful  he  was  that  he  was  an 
American  citizen,  free-born,  where  he  ac 
knowledged  no  man  his  superior,  unless  it 
was  by  merit,  and  no  man  his  inferior,  unless 
by  his  demerit. 

He  also  wrote  that  he  met  some  English 
men  who  had  climbed  the  Matterhorn.  They 
talked  as  though  nobody  else  could  climb 
mountains,  he  wrote,  so  he  climbed  it  him 
self  just  to  show  them  that  Americans  can 
climb,  too. 

I  had  a  letter  from  Cutler  the  next  spring 
saying  that  Theodore  was  busy  studying  law 
and  was  getting  into  politics.  He  was  elected 
to  the  New  York  Legislature  shortly  after. 
He  was  twice  re-elected,  I  believe. 

He  was  still  frail  in  those  days,  suffering 
with  asthma,  and  one  fall,  I  think  it  was  in 
1883,  his  family  persuaded  him  to  take  a  trip 
9 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

out  to  Dakota.  I  do  not  know  who  had  told 
him  about  the  Bad  Lands  along  the  Little 
Missouri  River,  but  it  was  there  that  he  went, 
getting  off  the  train  at  Medora.  He  ran  into 
some  ranchmen  named  Ferris  and  after  three 
weeks  with  them  he  found  he  liked  the  coun 
try  so  much  that  he  bought  them  out. 


CHAPTER  II 

IT  was  during  Theodore's  third  term  in  the 
Legislature,  in  February,  1884,  that  his 
daughter  Alice  was  born.  That  very  night 
his  mother,  who  had  been  an  invalid  for 
years,  died  suddenly,  and  twelve  hours  later 
his  wife  died.  Cutler  wrote  me  about  it  and 
I  have  got  his  letter  still: 

Theodore's  mother  died  on  Thursday  morning  at  3 
A.M.  His  wife  died  the  same  day  at  10  A.M.,  about 
twenty-four  hours  after  the  birth  of  his  daughter. , 

Of  course,  the  family  are  utterly  demoralized  and 
Theodore  is  in  a  dazed,  stunned  state.  He  does  not 
know  what  he  does  or  says.  The  funeral  of  both  Mrs. 
Roosevelts  took  place  this  morning.  A  very  sad  sight. 
The  legislature  has  adjourned  for  three  days  out  of 
respect  for  Theodore's  loss. 

Three  weeks  later  I  had  a  letter  from 
Theodore  himself.  Here  it  is: 

6  WEST  57TH  STREET,  NEW  YORK. 

March  g,  1884. 

DEAR  WILL, — I  was  glad  to  hear  from  you,  and  I 
know  you  feel  for  me.  It  was  a  grim  and  evil  fate,  but 
ii 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

I  have  never  believed  it  did  any  good  to  flinch  or  yield 
for  any  blow,  nor  does  it  lighten  the  blow  to  cease  from 
working. 

I  have  thought  often  of  you.  I  hope  my  Western 
venture  turns  out  well.  If  it  does,  and  I  feel  sure  you 
will  do  well  for  yourself  by  coming  out  with  me,  I  shall 
take  you  and  Will  Dow  out  next  August.  Of  course, 
it  depends  upon  how  the  cattle  have  gotten  through  the 
winter.  The  weather  has  been  very  hard  and  I  am 
afraid  they  have  suffered  somewhat;  if  the  loss  has 
been  very  heavy  I  will  have  to  wait  a  year  longer  before 
going  into  it  on  a  more  extended  scale.  So,  as  yet,  the 
plan  is  doubtful.  If  you  went  out,  the  first  year  you 
could  not  expect  to  do  very  well,  but  after  that,  I 
think,  from  what  I  know  of  you,  you  would  have  a 
very  good  future  before  you. 

Good-by,  dear  friend,  may  God  bless  you  and  yours. 
Yours  always, 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 

I  went  down  to  New  York  that  spring  to 
see  him  and  to  talk  things  over.  He  said  he 
would  guarantee  us  a  share  of  anything  made 
in  the  cattle  business,  and  if  anything  was 
lost,  he  said  he  would  lose  it  and  pay  our 
wages.  He  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  the 
proposition.  I  told  him  that  I  thought  it  was 
very  one-sided,  but  if  he  thought  he  could 
stand  it,  I  thought  we  could.  Whatever 
happened,  he  said,  we  should  not  lose  by  it. 
That  was  all  the  bargain  there  was  and  all 
12 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

the  bargain  we  needed  from  him.  We  knew 
that  we  were  just  as  safe  as  if  we  had  had  a 
contract. 

I  went  back  to  Maine  and  didn't  hear  any 
more  from  him  for  a  while.  Then  suddenly 
he  wrote  to  me  wanting  me  to  come  at  once. 
I  wasn't  in  shape  to  come  at  once,  so  I  wrote 
back  and  asked  him  how  much  time  he  could 
give  me.  He  wrote,  saying  that  I  might  have 
what  was  left  of  that  week  and  all  of  the 
next.  That  was  something  like  ten  days  to 
get  my  affairs  fixed  up,  to  settle  my  wife  and 
little  girl,  and  get  everything  in  shape  to  go 
to  Dakota.  Early  in  July  I  got  this  letter 
from  him. 

422  MADISON  AVE.,  N.  Y., 
July  6th. 

I  enclose  you  the  check  of  three  thousand,  for  your 
self  and  Will  Dow,  to  pay  off  the  mortgage,  etc.,  etc. 

I  have  arranged  matters  in  the  West,  have  found  a 
good  place  for  a  ranch,  and  have  purchased  a  hundred 
head  of  cattle,  for  you  to  start  with. 

Now  a  little  plain  talk,  though  I  think  it  unnecessary, 
for  I  know  you  too  well.  If  you  are  afraid  of  hard  work 
and  privation,  don't  come  out  west.  If  you  expect  to 
make  a  fortune  in  a  year  or  two,  don't  come  west.  If 
you  will  give  up  under  temporary  discouragements, 
don't  come  out  west.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  you  are 
willing  to  work  hard,  especially  the  first  year;  if  you 
13 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

realize  that  for  a  couple  of  years  you  cannot  expect  to 
make  much  more  than  you  are  now  making;  if  you 
also  know  at  the  end  of  that  time  you  will  be  in  the 
receipt  of  about  a  thousand  dollars  for  the  third  year, 
with  an  unlimited  field  ahead  of  you  and  a  future  as 
bright  as  you  yourself  choose  to  make  it,  then  come. 

Now,  I  take  it  for  granted  that  you  will  not  hesitate 
at  this  time.  So  fix  up  your  affairs  at  once,  and  be  ready 
to  start  before  the  end  of  this  week. 

Dow  and  I  met  Theodore  in  New  York. 
We  all  started  for  Dakota  together  on  July 
28th.  We  reached  Chimney  Butte  Ranch, 
eight  miles  south  of  Medora,  which  Roose 
velt  had  bought  of  Sylvane  and  Joe  Ferris 
and  William  Merrifield,  on  the  ist  of  August. 

It  struck  me  that  the  man  who  first  called 
that  part  of  the  world  the  "Bad  Lands"  had 
hit  it  about  right.  He  was  a  man  named 
Boneval,  one  of  Astor's  old  fur  men.  As  the 
story  was  told  to  me,  he  had  charge  of  an 
expedition  of  trappers  who  had  been  furring 
up  in  the  Northwest  and  had  intended  to  go 
down  the  Big  Missouri  and  get  back  to  the 
point  they  had  started  from.  But  the  Indians 
were  on  the  war-path  and  it  was  dangerous 
along  the  Big  Missouri.  Boneval  thought 
that  by  leaving  the  Big  Missouri  somewhere 
14 


S 


4^>^\ 


x 


fyf"    •  C5 


crj      &^O~irt*st 

' 


c<<*  0~7     J^9^^- 
s?         /•     s?     S{1_ 

r^t^u^^i^t/^    <^-/ 
c-^^-^         ^c 


.     ££e^,    /    J^ 


V^&*^-^ 
•    C^^^i  <TJU*J>C+ 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

below  the  mouth  of  the  Yellowstone  they 
could  go  on  to  the  Little  Missouri  and  follow 
that  far  enough  to  strike  back  on  the  Big 
Missouri  below  the  Indians. 

When  they  got  to  the  Little  Missouri  they 
found  that  the  country  was  so  barren  and 
desolate  that  there  was  no  game  of  any  kind, 
and  the  weather  so  dry  and  hot  that  their 
wagons  came  to  pieces.  Their  provisions  ran 
short  and  they  had  a  very  hard,  difficult  time 
getting  through.  For  that  reason  he  named 
the  country  the  "Bad  Lands."  I  don't  im 
agine  they  could  have  a  better  name.  It  is 
only  a  comparatively  short  time,  they  say, 
since  it  was  the  bottom  of  an  ocean,  as  all  of 
the  tops  of  nearly  all  the  high  hills  have  clam 
shells  and  snail-shells  on  them  and  the  coun 
try  is  cut  into  deep  wash-outs  and  gulches 
and  the  hills  are  very  steep.  The  country 
looked  as  though  it  had  been  thrown  up  by 
some  volcanic  power. 

I  have  heard  that  General  Sully,  who  took 
an  expedition  into  the  region  and  gave  the 
first  regular  report  of  the  country,  was  asked 
to  describe  what  the  "Bad  Lands"  were  like, 
and  he  said  he  "didn't  know  they  were  like 
15 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

anything,  unless  it  was  hell  with  the  fire  gone 
out." 

But  there  were  times  that  I  remember  when 
you  wouldn't  exactly  agree  that  the  fire  had 
really  gone  out.  I  recall  one  Fourth  of  July, 
especially,  when  the  temperature  was  125 
degrees  in  the  shade  with  a  strong  hot  wind 
which  killed  almost  every  green  thing  in  the 
country.  Some  willows  and  cottonwoods, 
that  grew  in  the  most  moist  places,  showed  a 
sickly  green  after  that  day,  but  the  grass  was 
all  killed. 

To  me  it  was  a  strange  and  interesting 
country.  Some  of  the  hills  had  been  worn  by 
the  water  in  such  a  way  that,  from  a  distance, 
they  looked  like  the  ruins  of  old  castles.  In 
the  fall  when  the  leaves  turned  it  was  very 
beautiful.  The  hills  there  are  not  very  high, 
but  often  very  steep,  and  as  there  is  nothing 
higher  to  compare  them  with  they  look  higher 
than  they  actually  are.  From  the  top  of  these 
hills  you  looked  at  a  great  circle  as  far  as  the 
eye  could  reach;  the  only  thing  that  I  could 
compare  it  to  would  be  a  great  rag  rug  such 
as  the  women  make  down  in  Maine,  of  all 
kinds  and  colors  of  rags.  It  was  a  country 
16 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

pleasant  to  look  at  and  always  very  interest 
ing.  Everything  that  grows  there  is  dwarfed, 
except  the  cottonwoods,  which  grow  to  a  fan- 
height  in  places  near  the  river.  On  the  steep, 
rough  hills  the  red  cedar  grows,  and  in  the 
fall,  when  the  leaves  turn,  the  stunted  bushes 
and  shrubs  make  a  variety  of  color.  Some  of 
the  clay  hills  which  have  veins  of  soft  coal, 
get  on  fire  and  in  cold  weather  they  steam 
and  smoke  like  small  volcanoes. 

The  first  night  we  were  at  Chimney  Butte 
Roosevelt  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  the 
country.  I  told  him  that  I  liked  the  country 
well  enough,  but  that  I  didn't  believe  that  it 
was  much  of  a  cattle  country. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "Bill,  you  don't  know 
anything  about  it."  He  said,  "Everybody 
that's  here  says  that  it  is."  I  said  that  it 
was  a  fact  that  I  did  not  know  anything 
about  it.  I  realized  that.  But  it  was  the  way 
it  looked  to  me,  like  not  much  of  a  cattle 
country. 

Roosevelt  had  decided  to  build  a  comfort 
able  ranch-house  at  a  bend  in  the  river  some 
thirty-five  or  forty  miles   north   of  Chim 
ney  Butte.     Dow  and  I  were  to  build  the 
17 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

house,  so  the  day  after  we  arrived  we  moved 
up  the  river,  driving  the  cattle  before  us.  It 
was  all  unclaimed  land  along  there,  belong 
ing  either  to  the  government  or  to  the  North 
ern  Pacific  Railroad.  We  were  simply  squat 
ters,  as  nearly  all  of  the  other  men  were  in 
those  days. 

We  were  busy  watching  cattle  until  near 
the  end  of  August.  It  was  new  work  to  Dow 
and  myself  and  we  liked  it.  It  was  interest 
ing.  Besides,  the  wild,  desolate  grandeur  of 
the  country  had  a  kind  of  charm.  Back  in 
some  of  the  ravines  where  the  cedars  grew 
thick  you  could  easily  imagine  that  no  one 
had  ever  been  before ;  but  you  were  generally 
wrong  when  you  thought  that.  Many  times 
I  had  almost  made  up  my  mind  that  I  was 
where  no  human  being  had  been  before  when 
I  would  run  on  a  tobacco-tag  or  a  beer-bottle. 

We  started  building  the  ranch-house  in  a 
clump  of  large  cottonwood-trees  near  the 
bank  of  the  Little  Missouri  River.  West  from 
the  house  it  was  smooth  and  grassy  for  about 
a  hundred  yards,  then  there  was  a  belt  of 
cottonwoods  which  went  back  for  some  two 
hundred  yards.  They  were  the  largest  trees 
18 


ELKHORN     RANCH   FROM   ACROSS   THE  LITTLE   MISSOURI 


THE    RANCH-HOUSE 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

I  ever  saw  in  Dakota  and  it  was  from  them 
that  we  got  most  of  the  timber  for  the  house. 
Back  of  them  the  steep  clay  hills  rose  to  the 
height  of  two  or  three  hundred  feet  and  looked 
like  miniature  mountains.  A  little  to  the 
northwest  was  a  hill  with  coal  veins  in  it 
which  burned  red  in  the  dark.  To  the  east 
we  looked  across  the  river  about  two  hundred 
yards,  then  across  a  wide  bottom  covered 
with  grass,  sage-brush,  and  some  small  trees, 
to  the  steep  clay  hills  which  rose  almost  per 
pendicular  from  the  river  bottom.  Beyond 
that  was  the  Bad  Lands  for  perhaps  twenty 
miles. 

Early  in  October  we  began  hewing  timber 
for  the  house  and  we  were  at  work  getting 
material  almost  all  of  the  time  until  New- 
Year 's.  I  designed  the  house  myself  and  it 
was  a  sizable  place,  sixty  feet  long,  thirty 
feet  wide,  and  seven  feet  high,  with  a  flat 
roof  and  a  porch  where  after  the  day's  work 
Theodore  used  to  sit  in  a  rocking-chair, 
reading  poetry. 

While  we  were  cutting  the  timber  Theodore 
went  to  the  Big  Horn  Mountains  for  an  elk- 
hunt.  He  wanted  me  to  go  with  him,  but  I 
19 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

disliked  to  leave  Dow  alone,  knowing,  if  I 
went,  one  man  would  not  be  much  of  a  crew 
to  work  on  the  house;  so  I  prevailed  on 
Roosevelt  to  get  a  man  who  was  familiar 
with  the  country  to  go  with  him.  I  never 
wanted  to  go  on  a  hunt  so  much  as  that  one. 
In  one  of  his  books  he  tells  about  it : 

The  finest  bull  with  the  best  head  that  I  got  was 
killed  in  the  midst  of  very  beautiful  and  grand  sur 
roundings.  We  had  been  hunting  through  a  great  pine 
wood  which  ran  up  to  the  edge  of  a  broad  canyon- 
like  valley  bounded  by  sheer  walls  of  rock.  There 
were  fresh  tracks  of  elk  about,  and  we  had  been  ad 
vancing  upward  with  even  more  than  our  usual  caution 
when,  on  stepping  out  into  a  patch  of  open  ground 
near  the  edge  of  the  cliff,  we  came  upon  a  great  bull, 
beating  and  thrashing  his  antlers  against  a  young  tree 
eighty  yards  off.  He  stopped  and  faced  us  for  a  second, 
high,  mighty  antlers  thrown  into  the  air  as  he  held  his 
head  aloft.  Behind  him  towered  the  tall  and  somber 
pines,  while  at  his  feet  the  jutting  crags  overhung  the 
deep  chasm  below,  that  stretched  off  between  high 
walls  of  barren  and  snow-streaked  rocks,  the  evergreen 
clinging  to  their  sides,  while  along  the  bottom  the 
rapid  torrent  gathered  in  places  into  black  and  sullen 
mountain  lakes.  As  the  bull  turned  to  run,  I  struck 
him  just  behind  the  shoulder;  he  reeled  to  the  death 
blow,  but  staggered  gamely  on  a  few  rods  into  the 
forest  before  sinking  to  the  ground  with  my  second 
bullet  through  his  lungs. 


20 


CHAPTER  III 

WHILE  he  was  away  on  this  hunting- 
trip  we  heard  that  a  man  who  was 
known  as  a  trouble-maker  and  who  worked 
on  the  ranch  of  a  Frenchman  named  de 
Mores,  a  marquis  who  laid  claim  to  the  large 
piece  of  country  on  which  our  ranch  was 
situated,  had  threatened  to  shoot  Roosevelt. 
I  told  Theodore  about  it  when  he  came  back. 

He  said,  " Is  that  so?" 

Then  he  saddled  his  horse  and  rode  straight 
to  where  the  man  lived.  Theodore  found  him 
in  his  shack  and  told  him  that  he  had  heard 
that  a  man  had  said  he  wanted  to  shoot  him, 
and,  said  Theodore,  he  wanted  to  know  why. 

The  man  was  flabbergasted,  I  guess,  by 
Roosevelt's  directness.  He  denied  that  he 
had  ever  said  anything  like  it.  He  had  been 
misquoted,  he  said. 

The  affair  passed  off  very  pleasantly  and 
Roosevelt  and  he  were  good  friends  after  that. 
21 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

Later  in  the  fall,  while  Roosevelt  was  away 
on  another  trip  and  Dow  and  I  were  getting 
material  for  the  house,  we  heard  that  the 
same  man  who  had  threatened  Roosevelt 
was  threatening  us.  Dow  happened  to  over 
hear  two  men  talking  about  us.  They  were 
not  unfriendly  to  us,  but  they  had  evidently 
heard  the  threats.  One  remarked  to  the  other 
there  would  be  dead  men  around  that  old 
shack  where  we  were,  some  day. 

Of  course,  Dow  told  me  of  this  and  right 
there  we  decided  if  there  were  any  dead  men 
there,  it  would  not  be  us. 

We  went  on  with  our  work,  preparing  for 
an  attack.  Our  guns  were  where  we  could 
pick  them  up  in  an  instant.  We  were  work 
ing  at  the  edge  of  a  piece  of  timber  and  there 
was  quite  a  thicket  behind  us.  We  knew  that 
if  anybody  came,  he  would  come  by  the 
trail  and  we  intended  to  make  for  the  timber, 
and  if  he  wanted  to  hunt  us  there,  why,  we 
would  see  who  was  best  at  the  business. 

One  Sunday  morning  I  was  writing  home 
and  Dow  had  gone  out  for  a  walk.  Suddenly 
I  heard  a  great  fusillade;  something  over 
twenty  guns  were  fired  as  fast  as  I  could 

22 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

count.  Very  soon  afterward  a  half-dozen 
men  rode  up  to  the  shack.  They  were  cow 
boys.  I  knew  one  of  them  as  the  right-hand 
man  of  the  Marquis  de  Mores,  and  decided 
that  they  had  come  down  to  look  us  over. 

I  asked  them  in  a  friendly  manner  to  dis 
mount  and  come  in,  which  they  did.  As  it 
was  getting  near  noon,  I  asked  them  if  they 
wouldn't  like  to  have  something  to  eat.  They 
said  they  would.  I  told  them  the  cook  was 
out,  but  I  would  do  my  best.  We  had  a  good 
pot  of  beans  that  we  had  baked  in  the  ground, 
woods  fashion.  I  dug  them  out  and  got  what 
bread  we  had  on  hand.  We  had  plenty  of 
hard  bread.  I  made  them  some  coffee  and 
got  out  all  the  best  things  we  had  in  the 
shack.  I  had  decided  to  treat  them  just  as 
nicely  as  I  knew  how.  Then  if  they  started 
any  trouble  I  intended  to  make  sure  of  the 
leader  first  thing.  I  think  he  had  had  a  little 
whisky,  as  he  certainly  had  a  very  sharp 
appetite. 

I  helped  him  to  the  beans  and  he  began  to 

praise  them.   He  said  he  never  saw  such  good 

baked  beans  and  he  didn't  know  when  he  had 

had  anything  as  good  as  they  were.     I  had 

23 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

plenty  of  beans  and  kept  urging  him  to  have 
more.  I  knew  that  that  was  a  good  way  to 
make  a  man  feel  good-natured.  After  dinner 
we  went  out  and  looked  the  place  over.  They 
thought  we  had  a  very  nice  place,  fixed  up 
very  nice,  and  didn't  find  any  fault  with  any 
thing.  The  party  rode  off  and  I  didn't  hear 
any  more  shooting. 

Dow  didn't  come  back  until  after  they  had 
gone.  He  had  heard  the  shooting  and  I  re 
ported  the  visit.  We  decided  if  there  had  been 
any  danger  it  had  passed,  which  proved  to 
be  true.  However,  we  carried  our  guns  for  a 
while,  just  the  same.  I  was  always  treated 
very  nicely  by  that  man  afterward  and  he 
seemed  very  friendly. 

He  was  a  man  who  didn't  bear  a  very  good 
name.  He  had  killed  one  man  that  they  were 
sure  of  and  they  thought  he  had  killed  another. 

When  Theodore  came  back  we  reported  to 
him  what  had  happened.  We  all  concluded 
that  if  there  were  any  dead  men  around  the 
shack  they  would  be  men  that  would  die  a 
natural  death. 

We  went  right  on  with  the  building  of  the 
house  as  soon  as  the  cold  weather  would  let 

24 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

us.  I  remember  the  morning  that  we  began 
to  put  up  the  walls  the  thermometer  was 
sixty-five  degrees  below  zero.  This  was  the 
coldest  weather  I  have  ever  experienced. 
No  one  suffered  much  from  the  heat  the 
next  three  weeks.  The  thermometer  ranged 
from  thirty  to  sixty-five  below  most  of  the 
time.  When  it  was  too  cold  to  go  on  with 
the  work,  Dow  and  I  went  with  a  wagon 
over  the  ice  to  an  Indian  village  about  sixty 
miles  south. 

Theodore,  who  had  gone  east  about  Christ 
mas,  came  out  in  April  to  see  how  things  were 
coming  on  and  to  do  a  little  hunting.  It  was 
about  that  time  that  he  received  a  threaten 
ing  letter  from  the  Marquis  de  Mores  which 
nearly  resulted  in  a  duel. 

The  Marquis  had  some  time  before  become 
implicated  in  a  bad  murder  case.  Two  men, 
one  named  Reilly,  the  other  O'Donnell,  had  a 
shack  on  land  the  Marquis  claimed  was  his 
cattle  range.  He  had  made  some  talk  about 
driving  them  off  the  land.  Reilly,  who  was  a 
frontiersman,  an  unusually  good  shot,  had 
said  that  if  this  was  done  by  the  Marquis 
he  would  shoot  him. 

25 


BILL  SE WALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

The  Marquis  concluded  to  take  no  chances. 
With  a  number  of  his  men,  he  concealed 
himself  in  the  bushes  where  they  had  a 
view  of  the  trail  on  which  O'Donnell  and 
Reilly  would  come  to  town.  They  waited 
for  the  two  men  to  come  along,  and  when 
they  appeared  they  saw  that  they  were 
accompanied  by  a  Dutchman  whose  name 
was  Reuter.  He  was  unarmed,  and  all  three 
were  unsuspecting.  The  Marquis  waited  until 
the  men  were  in  the  right  position,  and  then 
he  and  his  men  opened  fire.  Reuter's  horse 
was  killed,  the  stock  of  O'Donnell's  rifle 
was  shot  off  so  that  he  could  not  use  it,  and 
Reilly  was  mortally  wounded.  But  he  was 
a  man  of  grit  and  determination.  He  fired 
several  shots  at  the  smoke  before  he  died. 
He  could  not  see  the  men  that  were  con 
cealed  in  the  bushes. 

Maunders,  the  man  who  had  threatened 
Roosevelt  some  time  before,  was  one  of  the 
Marquis's  party.  The  killing  was  laid  to 
him  simply  because  he  was  the  best  shot  of 
any  of  the  men  the  Marquis  employed. 
The  Marquis,  however,  took  complete  re 
sponsibility  and  was  subsequently  tried  for 
26 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

murder.  Reuter,  who  had  deposited  money 
with  Joe  Ferris,  was  summoned  as  a  witness. 
He  drew  his  money  from  Ferris  to  pay  his 
expenses  to  go  to  the  trial.  The  Marquis 
got  the  idea  that  Roosevelt  had  furnished 
money  for  the  prosecution,  which,  of  course, 
wasn't  so,  and  closed  his  letter  by  saying 
that  there  was  always  a  way  to  settle  such 
difficulties  between  gentlemen. 

Roosevelt  read  me  the  letter  and  said 
that  he  regarded  it  as  a  threat  that  the 
Marquis  would,  perhaps,  challenge  him. 
If  he  did,  he  should  accept  the  challenge, 
for  he  would  not  be  bullied.  He  said  that 
his  friends  would  all  be  opposed  to  his  fight 
ing  a  duel,  and  that  he  was  opposed  to  duel 
ing  himself.  But  if  he  was  challenged,  he 
should  accept.  That  would  give  him  the 
choice  of  weapons.  He  would  choose  Win 
chester  rifles,  and  have  the  distance  arranged 
at  twelve  paces.  He  did  not  consider  him 
self  a  very  good  shot  and  wanted  to  be  near 
enough  so  that  he  could  hit.  They  would 
shoot  and  advance  until  one  or  the  other 
was  satisfied.  He  told  me  that  if  he  was 
challenged,  he  wanted  me  to  act  as  his  second. 
27 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

I  told  him  I'd  certainly  do  it,  but  that  I 
didn't  think  he  would  have  to  fight;  that  a 
man  who  would  lay  in  ambush  and  shoot  at 
unsuspecting  men  would  not  want  to  fight 
such  a  duel  as  that. 

Roosevelt  said  in  his  answer  to  the  Mar 
quis  that  he  had  no  ill-will  toward  him,  and 
had  furnished  no  money  for  the  prosecution ; 
but  as  the  closing  sentence  of  the  Marquis's 
letter  implied  a  threat,  he  felt  it  a  duty  to 
himself  to  say  that  at  all  times  and  in  all 
places  he  was  ready  to  answer  for  his  actions. 
I  told  him  after  he  read  the  letter  to  me  that 
I  thought  he  would  get  an  apology.  He 
said  that  he  did  not  think  he  would,  the  man 
might  ignore  the  letter,  but  he  did  not  think 
he  would  apologize. 

A  few  days  afterward  he  came  to  me  with 
a  letter  in  his  hands  which  he  read  to  me. 

He  said,  "You  were  right,  Bill."  The 
Marquis  had  written,  that  there  was  "always 
a  way  to  settle  misunderstandings  between 
gentlemen — without  trouble."  He  invited 
Theodore  to  his  house  to  dinner.  Theodore 
went  and  once  more  everything  passed  off 

pleasantly. 

28 


CHAPTER  IV 

HE  finished  the  house  that  spring  of  1885 
and  sometime  around  the  ist  of  June 
Roosevelt  went  east,  and  Dow  went  home 
to  be  married  and  to  bring  his  wife  and 
mine  back.  They  all  left  at  the  same  time. 
Rowe,  one  of  the  hands,  went  to  the  round-up 
and  I  was  left  entirely  alone.  I  had  plenty 
to  keep  me  from  being  lonesome,  though  I 
saw  very  few  people  for  a  month. 

Fourth  of  July  came,  and  as  I  heard  that 
there  was  going  to  be  a  great  celebration 
in  Medora,  I  decided  to  go  and  take  in 
the  fun. 

There  were  lots  of  cowboys  there  and  in 
the  forenoon  they  had  foot  races  and  horse 
races  which  were  exciting  to  watch.  Every 
body  was  comparatively  sober  and  all  seemed 
to  enjoy  themselves.  But  before  night  there 
were  signs  of  trouble.  Too  much  bad  whisky 
had  begun  to  show  its  effects.  There  were 
4  29 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

some  small  disagreements,  but  nothing  serious 
happened. 

About  sunset  the  town  had  become  pretty 
noisy  and  hilarious.  The  cowboys  were  be 
ginning  to  bunch  in  groups,  and  occasionally 
they  went  into  the  hotel  for  a  drink. 

I  was  in  the  hotel  when  a  party  came  in. 
They  all  drank  and  then  went  out,  some  of 
them  pretty  wild.  Then  they  proceeded  up 
the  street  a  short  distance,  and  a  minute  later 
all  hands  began  to  shoot.  The  bullets  went 
whistling  by  the  front  door  of  the  hotel, 
striking  the  railroad  buildings  or  the  em 
bankments. 

The  hotelkeeper  peered  out  cautiously  and 
said,  ''It's  pretty  noisy  out  there."  Then  he 
pulled  down  his  blinds  and  locked  his  doors. 

I  couldn't  think  of  any  business  that  I  had 
outside  that  evening,  so  I  decided  to  go  to 
bed.  During  the  night  I  was  awakened  a 
good  many  times  by  a  fusillade,  which  sounded 
a  good  deal  like  firing  India  crackers  by  the 
bunch,  only  a  good  deal  louder.  After  the 
shooting  there  was  generally  a  chorus  of  yells. 
As  I  was  in  a  brick  house,  perfectly  safe,  I 
didn't  allow  it  to  disturb  me  very  much. 
30 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

About  daylight  the  next  morning  I  got 
up  to  go  home  to  the  ranch.  Everything  was 
silent  and  quiet.  The  greater  part  of  the 
crowd  had  been  paralyzed  and  were  lying 
around  like  poisoned  flies,  wherever  the  paral 
ysis  had  taken  them.  The  town  could  have 
been  taken  that  morning  by  a  very  few  men. 
The  dead-shot  whisky  had  been  worse  than 
the  pistol-shooting.  Nobody  had  been  hurt 
by  that. 

I  went  home  and  began  to  get  ready  for  a 
trip  with  some  cowboys  who  were  going  up 
farther  north,  to  look  for  some  cattle  and 
horses  which  they  thought  had  been  stolen 
and  taken  in  that  direction.  We  met  at 
Eaton  Ranch,  about  ten  miles  north  of 
ours,  and  the  next  morning  prepared  for 
our  journey. 

There  were  six  of  us;  three  were  natives 
of  Maine,  one  of  Florida,  one  of  Texas,  and 
one  of  Kentucky,  all  old,  experienced  cattle 
men  except  myself  and  one  other.  The 
Texan  was  the  boss.  He  was  a  good  fellow 
and  understood  his  business.  He  was  also 
the  cook  for  the  expedition,  for  he  had  been 
a  rebel  soldier  in  the  Civil  War  and  was  used 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

to  camping.  We  carried  our  provisions  on 
pack-horses — flour  and  baking-powder,  bacon, 
coffee,  and  sugar — and  each  man  carried  his 
own  eating  utensils,  a  plate  and  a  dipper, 
besides  the  knife  which  he  generally  car 
ried  in  his  pocket.  Four  of  the  men,  the 
regular  cowboys,  took  their  horses  with  them, 
seven  to  the  man.  Myself  and  the  boy  who 
went  with  me  each  had  two  riding-horses  and 
a  pack-horse. 

The  country  at  that  time  was  at  its  best. 
Acres  of  wild  roses  were  in  bloom,  and  here 
and  there  were  plums,  wild  morning-glories, 
and  cactuses,  which  really  made  the  country, 
in  places,  look  beautiful.  The  second  day  of 
our  journey  lay  in  more  level  and  less  barren 
country  as  we  left  the  Little  Missouri  and 
struck  for  the  Big  Missouri. 

Somewhere  below  the  mouth  of  the  Yellow 
stone  we  saw  a  white  object  ahead,  which  I 
took  to  be  a  large  stone,  although  there  were  no 
stones  that  I  had  seen  on  the  way.  When  we 
came  near,  it  proved  to  be  a  small  tent.  Two 
of  our  party  examined  it,  and  found  lying  on 
the  ground  inside  it  what  we  used  to  say  was 
32 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

the  only  kind  of  good  Indian  there  was — 
namely,  a  dead  one.  He  had  been  taken  sick, 
I  guess,  and  had  been  left  there  by  his  party. 
The  next  day,  when  we  reached  the  Missouri 
River,  we  came  across  a  party  of  Indians. 
They  were  Tetons.  One  of  the  men  in  our 
party  could  talk  their  language  and  they  told 
him  that  the  dead  Indian  belonged  to  their 
party  and  had  died  at  that  place.  They  didn't 
tell  us  why  they  hadn't  thought  to  bury  him. 
We  proceeded  down  the  Big  Missouri  River 
from  this  point,  the  cowboys  thinking  they 
would  find  the  stolen  horses  and  cattle  here 
abouts.  A  little  way  on  we  came  on  a  place 
where  there  was  a  white  man  and  an  Indian 
living.  As  soon  as  we  came  in  sight  the  white 
man  disappeared.  The  boss  of  our  outfit 
wanted  to  see  him  and  talk  with  him  to  see  if 
he  could  get  any  information,  but  the  man 
was  evidently  afraid  we  were  vigilantes  and 
kept  out  of  sight.  At  last  the  Texan  managed 
to  make  the  Indian  understand  what  he 
wanted  and  got  him  to  try  and  get  the  white 
man  to  come  out.  After  waiting  nearly  all 
day  he  got  up  courage  enough  at  last  to  show 
himself  and  was  much  relieved  when  he  found 
33 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

out  that  we  were  not  after  him.  Evidently 
he  had  a  bad  conscience  that  troubled  him 
some. 

We  followed  the  Big  Missouri  down  to  the 
mouth  of  Knife  River,  then  followed  the 
Knife  River  to  its  head  and  struck  from  there 
westward  back  to  the  Little  Missouri.  That 
afternoon  we  saw  a  bad-looking  shower  in  the 
west,  and  as  we  were  going  west  we  were  sure 
to  meet  it.  Five  or  six  miles  in  the  distance 
was  the  high  hill  called  Killdare  Mountain,  on 
which  there  was  a  growth  of  trees.  The  boss 
thought  it  was  a  bad-looking  cloud  and  that 
it  might  be  a  cyclone,  and  that  we  had  better 
hurry  and  get  in  the  shelter  of  the  trees.  We 
all  started  for  the  oaks  and  rode  as  hard  as 
we  could.  This  was  very  good  fun.  We  ar 
rived  there  just  in  time  to  get  our  horses 
unsaddled.  Each  man  picketed  the  horse  that 
he  was  riding  and  about  that  time  the  shower 
started  with  fury.  It  was  not  a  cyclone,  but 
a  hailstorm,  or  a  series  of  hailstorms,  which 
covered  a  space  of  a  couple  of  hours,  with 
short  intervals  between.  When  the  shower 
was  over  the  ground  was  covered  with  hail. 

From  Killdare  Mountain  to  the  Little  Mis- 
34 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

souri,  we  passed  through  very  rough  country. 
In  one  place  we  crossed  a  creek  on  a  natural 
bridge  of  clay.  It  was  probably  one  hundred 
feet  from  the  top  of  the  bridge  to  the  bottom 
of  the  creek  and  about  twenty-five  feet  thick, 
and  although  it  had  been  made  by  water  it 
looked  as  if  it  had  been  made  by  men. 

That  night  we  got  back  to  Eaton  Ranch. 
We  had  been  gone  eighteen  days  and  the  boss 
estimated  we  had  ridden  five  hundred  miles. 
I  enjoyed  this  trip  very  much.  It  was  all  new 
to  me  and  different  from  anything  that  I  had 
ever  seen  or  done.  I  was  about  as  green  as  a 
man  could  be.  I  told  the  rest  of  the  party 
the  morning  we  started  that  I  was  entirely 
new,  but  if  they  could  find  anything  for  me 
to  do,  where  they  thought  I  would  be  of  any 
use,  to  tell  me  and  show  me  how.  I  would  do 
the  best  I  could  and  would  be  a  good  fellow  if 
I  wasn't  good  for  anything  else.  That  amused 
them  and  they  were  very  nice  to  me  during 
the  whole  trip.  The  boss  used  to  pack  my 
horse  for  me  the  first  few  days,  until  I  got 
so  I  could  do  it  myself.  I  looked  around  to 
see  what  I  could  do  to  make  myself  useful, 
and  I  found  that  it  was  necessary  that  we 
35 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

should  be  up  early  in  the  morning,  but  that 
it  was  rather  hard  for  the  rest  of  the  boys  to 
wake  up  at  the  right  time.  I  had  learned  to 
be  an  early  riser  before  I  left  the  East  and  it 
was  no  trouble  for  me  to  get  up  in  the  morn 
ing.  The  mornings  were  cloudless  and  beau 
tiful.  They  were  cool,  and  we  used  often  to 
stop  from  ten  o'clock  until  about  three  in  the 
afternoon,  and  do  our  riding  long  in  the  even 
ing.  I  took  it  upon  myself  to  get  up  in  the 
morning  and  make  the  fires,  get  the  water 
and  make  the  coffee,  and  call  the  boss,  who 
cooked  the  bread,  while  I  fried  the  bacon  and 
boiled  the  coffee.  All  the  cooking  utensils  we 
had  were  a  tin  basin,  in  which  to  mix  the 
bread,  and  the  fry -pan  which  was  used  as  the 
baker.  It  was  necessary  to  make  two  batches 
of  bread  for  each  meal,  the  fry-pan  being  a 
rather  small  one.  The  cook  used  to  hold  the 
pan  on  the  fire  until  the  first  loaf  of  bread  got 
so  he  could  take  it  out,  then  he  would  set  it 
up  edgeways  before  the  fire  and  prop  it  up 
while  it  finished  baking.  Meantime  he  put 
the  second  batch  in  the  fry -pan  and  cooked 
it.  The  bread  was  good  and  light.  I  don't 
think  I  ever  ate  any  that  tasted  any  better. 
36 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

I  had  a  great  appetite  and  everything  tasted 
delicious. 

I  found  the  cowboys  to  be  good  com 
panions,  the  same  class  of  men  I  was  used 
to  being  with  at  home,  only  they  were  en 
gaged  in  a  different  business.  They  were 
pleasant,  kind-hearted  men  who  were  all 
right  unless  they  had  whisky,  and  were  no 
worse  then  than  our  men  of  the  same  class 
under  the  same  conditions. 


CHAPTER  V 

SHORTLY  after  I  got  home  to  Elkhorn 
Dow  came  back  to  the  ranch,  bringing  his 
wife  and  mine  and  our  little  daughter.  Rowe 
returned  from  the  round-up,  and  Roosevelt 
from  New  York.  We  then  began  to  live  ]ike 
white  folks. 

People  roundabout  used  to  say,  "no  house 
is  big  enough  to  hold  two  women,"  but  there 
was  never  any  harsh  word  spoken  at  Elkhorn 
Ranch,  and  I  have  an  idea  that  those  were 
the  most  peaceful  years  of  Roosevelt's  life. 
He  spent  most  of  the  time  with  us,  going 
East  very  little.  He  loved  the  desolate  coun 
try,  as  we  all  did,  especially  in  June  and  the 
first  part  of  July  when  the  rain  that  falls 
thereabouts  falls  in  thunder-showers  and 
the  country  loses  much  of  its  dreary  aspect. 
The  clay  buttes  were  always  barren  except 
for  some  few  shrubs  and  stunted  sage-brush, 
but  in  the  spring  the  narrow  valleys  and 
38 


THE    STABLES   AND  CORRALS   A;T 


RANCH, 


THE    "  WOMEN-FOLKS  " 

(Mrs.  Sewall  is  holding  her  daughter  Nancy;  beside  her  is  Mrs.  Dow. 
other  women  were  neighbors) 


The  two 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

moister  places  were  green.  There  were  many 
acres  of  wild  roses  and  wild  pomegranates; 
in  places  there  were  berries  that  people  called 
June  berries,  though  they  did  not  ripen  until 
July.  They  reminded  me  of  sugar-plums 
and  the  women-folks  used  to  make  jelly  of 
them. 

We  were  all  a  very  happy  family  at  Elk- 
horn  Ranch  those  two  years  that  we  spent 
there  with  Theodore  Roosevelt.  He  worked 
like  the  rest  of  us  and  occasionally  he  worked 
longer  than  any  of  the  rest  of  us,  for  often 
when  we  were  through  with  the  day's  work  he 
would  go  to  his  room  and  write.  He  wrote 
several  hunting-books  during  those  years,  be 
sides  the  Life  of  Benton  and  the  Life  of  Gou- 
verneur  Morris.  More  often,  however,  he 
would  sit  before  the  fire  cold  autumn  or  winter 
nights  and  tell  stories  of  his  hunting-trips  or 
about  history  that  he  had  read.  He  was  the 
best-read  man  I  ever  saw  or  ever  heard  of, 
and  he  seemed  to  remember  everything  that 
he  read.  His  mind  was  exactly  like  that 
fellow  that  Byron  speaks  about — I  forget 
where,  but  I  cannot  forget  that  line — 

Wax  to  receive,  and  marble  to  retain. 
39 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

It  was  at  that  time  that  Roosevelt  made  a 
definite  written  contract  with  us.  Here  is 
the  contract  as  he  wrote  it  himself : 

LITTLE  MISSOURI,  DAKOTA, 

June  20,  1885. 

We  the  undersigned,  Theodore  Roosevelt,  party  of 
the  first  part,  and  William  Sewall  and  Wilmot  S.  Dow, 
partie_  of  the  second  part,  do  agree  and  contract  as 
follows: 

(1)  The  party  of  the  first  part  having  put  eleven 
hundred   head   of   cattle,   valued   at   twenty-five 
thousand  dollars  ($25,000)  on  the  Elkhorn  Ranche, 
on  the  Little  Missouri  River,  the  parties  of  the 
second  part  do  agree  to  take  charge  of  said  cattle 
for  the  space  of  three  years,  and  at  the  end  of  this 
time  agree  to  return  to  said  party  of  the  first  part 
the  equivalent  in  value  of  the  original  herd  (twenty- 
five  thousand  dollars);    any  increase  in  value  of 
the  herd  over  said  sum  of  twenty-five  thousand 
dollars  is  to  belong  two-thirds  to  said  party  of  the 
first  part  and  one-third  to  said  parties  of  the  second 
part. 

(2)  From  time  to  time  said  parties  of  the  second  part 
shall  in  the  exercise  of  their  best  judgment  make 
sales  of  such  cattle  as  are  fit  for  market,  the  moneys 
obtained  by  said  sales  to  belong  two-thirds  to  said 
party  of  the  first  part  and  one-third  to  said  parties 
of  the  second  part;   but  no  sales  of  cattle  shall  be 
made  sufficient  in  amount  to  reduce  the  herd 
below  its  original  value  save  by  the  direction  in 
writing  of  the  party  of  the  first  part. 

(3)  The  parties  of  the  second  part  are  to  keep  accurate 

40 


vf    '  &s\&          <3^ls*~J3^^~-^c<J{ 


3). 


&^re-&( 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

accounts  of  expenditures,  losses,  the  calf  crop,  etc.; 
said  accounts  to  be  always  open  to  the  inspection 
of  the  party  of  the  first  part. 

(4)  The  parties  of  the  second  part  are  to  take  good  care 
of  the  cattle,  and  also  of  the  ponies,  buildings,  etc., 
belonging  to  said  party  of  the  first  part. 
Signed, 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

(party  of  the  first  part), 
W.  W.  SEWALL 
W.  S.  Dow 

(parties  of  the  second  part). 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  plain  story  of 
the  business  side  of  that  ranch  has  ever  been 
told.  Theodore  invested  over  $50,000  to 
stock  our  claim,  in  cattle  and  horses — about 
one  hundred  head  of  the  latter — and  he  lost 
most  of  it,  but  came  back  physically  strong 
enough  to  be  anything  he  wanted  to  be  from 
President  of  the  United  States  down.  He 
went  to  Dakota  a  frail  young  man  suffering 
from  asthma  and  stomach  trouble.  When  he 
got  back  into  the  world  again  he  was  as 
husky  as  almost  any  man  I  have  ever  seen 
who  wasn't  dependent  on  his  arms  for  his 
livelihood.  He  weighed  one  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds,  and  was  clear  bone,  muscle,  and 
grit.  That  was  what  the  ranch  did  for  him 

5  41 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

physically.  What  it  did  for  him  financially 
was  a  different  story.  I  do  not  believe 
Theodore  Roosevelt  ever  made  a  dollar  out 
of  his  cattle  or  ever  saw  again  more  than  a 
small  part  of  his  original  investment. 

Our  whole  trouble  was  that  cattle  had 
already  begun  to  fall  in  price  before  we  started 
and  they  continued  to  fall.  The  truth  about 
it  all  is  that  in  that  country,  with  the  long, 
dry  summers  and  the  cold  winters,  no  one 
but  a  man  who  was  an  experienced  ranchman 
and,  at  the  same  time,  a  sharp  business  man 
could  ever  have  expected  to  come  out  ahead 
of  the  game,  and  Roosevelt  did  not  pretend 
to  be  a  business  man.  He  never  cared  about 
making  money  and  he  didn't  go  to  Dakota 
for  the  money  he  expected  to  make  there;  he 
came  because  he  liked  the  country  and  he 
liked  the  people  and  he  liked  the  wild,  advent 
urous  life.  The  financial  side  of  the  ranch 
was  a  side  issue  with  him.  He  cared  more  for 
writing  books  than  he  did  about  business,  and 
I  guess  he  cared  even  more  then  about  doing 
something  in  public  life  than  he  cared  about 
either.  He  went  East  quite  often.  The  poli 
ticians  would  send  for  him.  He  used  to  com- 
42 


THEODORE    ROOSEVELT   ON   HIS   FAVORITE   HORSE,    "  MANITOU " 

(Photograph  by  T.  W.  Ingersoll,  used  by  courtsey  of  W.  T.  Dantz) 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

plain  to  me  that  the  telegraph  station  was 
too  near,  though  it  was  a  good  thirty  miles 
away,  down  at  Medora  on  the  Northern 
Pacific. 

Roosevelt  led  the  regular  life  of  a  Dakota 
ranchman  except  that  he  did  a  good  deal  of 
reading  and  writing  which  ranchmen,  as  a 
rule,  are  not  such  good  hands  at.  He  did  all 
of  the  regular  work  of  the  cowboy  and  used 
to  attend  the  round-ups  that  were  held  within 
a  hundred  or  two  hundred  miles  of  our  ranch. 
For  days  on  end  and  all  day  long  he  would 
ride  the  range  after  the  cattle. 

In  Wilderness  Hunter  he  tells  about  it  bet 
ter  than  I  can. 

Early  in  June,  just  after  the  close  of  the  regular 
spring  round-up,  a  couple  of  supply-wagons  with  a 
score  of  riders  between  them  were  sent  to  work  some 
hitherto  untouched  country  between  the  Little  Mis 
souri  and  the  Yellowstone.  I  was  going  as  the  repre 
sentative  of  our  own  and  one  or  two  other  neighboring 
hands,  but  as  the  round-up  had  halted  near  my  ranch 
I  determined  to  spend  a  day  there  and  then  to  join 
the  wagons,  the  appointed  meeting-place  being  a  cluster 
of  red  scoria  buttes  some  forty  miles  distant,  where 
there  was  a  spring  of  good  water.  Most  of  my  day  at 
the  ranch  was  spent  in  slumber,  for  I  had  been  several 
weeks  on  the  round-up,  where  nobody  ever  gets  quite 
43 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

enough  sleep.  .  .  .  The  men  are  in  the  saddle  from 
dawn  until  dusk,  at  the  time  when  the  days  are  longest, 
and  in  addition  there  is  the  regular  night  guarding  and 
now  and  then  a  furious  storm  or  a  stampede,  when  for 
twenty-four  hours  at  a  stretch  the  riders  only  dismount 
to  change  horses  or  snatch  a  mouthful  of  food. 

I  started  in  the  bright  sunrise,  riding  one  horse  and 
driving  loose  before  me  eight  others,  one  carrying  my 
bedding.  They  traveled  strung  out  in  single  file.  .  .  . 
In  mid-afternoon  I  reached  the  wagons.  .  .  .  Our 
wagon  was  to  furnish  the  night  guards  for  the  cattle; 
and  each  of  us  had  his  gentlest  horse  tied  ready  to 
hand.  The  night  guards  went  on  duty  two  at  a  time 
for  two-hour  watches.  By  good  luck  my  watch  came 
last.  My  comrade  was  a  happy-go-lucky  young  Texan 
who  for  some  inscrutable  reason  was  known  as  "Latigo 
Strap";  he  had  just  come  from  the  South  with  a  big 
drove  of  trail  cattle.  A  few  minutes  before  two  one 
of  the  guards  who  had  gone  on  duty  at  midnight  rode 
into  camp  and  wakened  us  by  shaking  our  shoulders. 
.  .  .  One  of  the  annoyances  of  guarding,  at  least  in 
thick  weather,  is  the  occasional  difficulty  of  finding  the 
herd  after  leaving  camp,  or  in  returning  to  camp  after 
the  watch  is  over;  there  are  few  things  more  exasper 
ating  than  to  be  helplessly  wandering  about  in  the 
dark  under  such  circumstances.  However,  on  this 
occasion  there  was  no  such  trouble,  for  it  was  a  brilliant 
starlit  night  and  the  herd  had  been  bedded  down  by  a 
sugar-loaf  butte  which  made  a  good  landmark. 

As  we  reached  the  spot  we  could  make  out  the  forms 

of  the  cattle  lying  close  together  on  the  level  plain; 

and  then  the  dim  figure  of  a  horseman  rose  vaguely 

from  the  darkness  and  moved  by  in  silence;  it  was  the 

44 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

other  of  the  two  midnight  guards  on  his  way  back  to  his 
broken  slumber.  At  once  we  began  to  ride  slowly 
round  the  cattle  in  opposite  directions.  We  were  silent, 
for  the  night  was  clear  and  the  herd  quiet. 

In  wild  weather,  when  the  cattle  are  restless,  the 
cowboys  never  cease  calling  and  singing  as  they  circle 
them,  for  the  sounds  seem  to  quiet  the  beasts.  For 
over  an  hour  we  steadily  paced  the  endless  round. 
Then  faint  streaks  of  gray  appeared  in  the  east.  Latigo 
Strap  began  to  call  merrily  to  the  cattle.  A  coyote 
came  sneaking  over  the  butte  and  halted  to  yell  and 
wail.  As  it  grew  lighter  the  cattle  became  restless, 
rising  and  stretching  themselves,  while  we  continued 
to  ride  around  them. 

"Then  the  bronc'  began  to  pitch 

And  I  began  to  ride; 
He  bucked  me  off  a  cut  bank. 
Hell!  I  nearly  died!" 

sang  Latigo  from  the  other  side  of  the  herd.  A  yell 
from  the  wagons  afar  off  told  that  the  cook  was  sum 
moning  the  sleeping  cow-punchers  to  breakfast  .  .  . 
all  the  cattle  got  on  their  feet  and  started  feeding. 

Roosevelt  was  afraid  of  nothing  and  nobody. 
I  remember  a  "bad  man"  he  met  once  in  some 
small  town  in  the  Bad  Lands.  The  man  had 
been  drinking  and  he  had  heard  of  Roosevelt, 
the  new-comer  to  the  frontier.  Theodore  was 
not  a  big  man — he  was  only  of  medium  height, 
weighing  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds, 
45 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

and  he  wore  glasses.  But  grit  to  the  heel! 
The  fellow  called  him  a  "four-eyed  tender 
foot"  and  tried  to  take  his  measure  in  abusive 
language.  Theodore  paid  no  attention  to  all 
this,  and  the  tough  naturally  concluded  that 
he  was  afraid  of  him.  Suddenly,  Roosevelt 
let  out  and  caught  him  on  the  butt  of  the 
jaw — and  he  flattened  out.  This  gained  him 
some  reputation. 

He  was  a  great  hand  to  see  and  hear  all  of 
the  funny  things,  and  he  enjoyed  good  jokes 
and  stories  even  if  the  joke  was  on  himself. 
At  one  time  he  was  out  riding  and  stopped 
for  luncheon  at  the  house  of  a  woman  who 
had  a  great  reputation  for  making  buckskin 
shirts.  She  was  good  deal  of  a  character  who 
was  living  in  a  wild  bit  of  country  with  a 
man  who  had  shot  the  man  she  lived  with 
before.  He  might  have  been  her  husband,  for 
all  I  know,  and  might  not.  Theodore  always 
carried  a  book  with  him  wherever  he  went, 
and  was  sitting  in  a  corner  reading,  with  his 
legs  stretched  out.  The  woman,  who  was 
getting  his  dinner,  stumbled  over  his  feet. 

She  told  him  to  move  that  damned  foot. 

He  said  that  he  thought  that  was  a  perfect- 
46 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

ly  proper  way  for  a  lady  to  ask  a  gentleman 
to  move,  but  that  he  had  never  happened  to 
hear  it  put  that  way  before.  However,  he 
said  he  moved  the  foot  and  what  was  at 
tached  to  it  and  waited  until  he  was  called 
to  dinner,  which  proved  to  be  excellent,  paid 
for  it,  and  left  as  quickly  as  he  could.  He 
did  not  want  to  be  in  that  woman's  way 
again. 

Roosevelt  was  very  melancholy  at  times, 
and,  the  first  year  we  were  in  Dakota,  very 
much  down  in  spirits.  He  told  me  one  day 
that  he  felt  as  if  it  did  not  make  any  differ 
ence  what  became  of  him — he  had  nothing 
to  live  for,  he  said.  I  used  to  go  for  him 
bow-legged  when  he  talked  like  that,  telling 
him  that  he  ought  not  to  allow  himself  to 
feel  that  way. 

"You  have  your  child  to  live  for,"  I  said. 

' '  Her  aunt  can  take  care  of  her  a  good  deal 
better  than  I  can, ' '  he  said.  * '  She  never  would 
know  anything  about  me,  anyway.  She 
would  be  just  as  well  off  without  me." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "you  should  not  allow 
yourself  to  feel  that  way.  You  won't  al 
ways  feel  that  way.  You  will  get  over 
47 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

this  after  a  while.  I  have  had  troubles  of  this 
kind — nothing  like  what  you  have,  nothing 
so  great — but  I  know  how  such  things  are; 
but  time  heals  them  over.  You  won't  always 
feel  as  you  do  now  and  you  won't  always  be 
willing  to  stay  here  and  drive  cattle,  because 
when  you  get  to  feeling  differently  you  will 
want  to  get  back  among  your  friends  and  as 
sociates  where  you  can  do  more  and  be  more 
benefit  to  the  world  than  you  can  here  driving 
cattle."  And  I  said,  "If  you  cannot  think  of 
anything  else  to  do  you  can  go  home  and 
start  a  reform.  You  would  make  a  good 
reformer.  You  always  want  to  make  things 
better  instead  of  worse." 

He  laughed  about  it;  but  he  never  said 
anything  more  to  me  about  feeling  that  he 
had  nothing  to  live  for.  Maybe  he  thought 
I  was  not  sympathetic. 


CHAPTER  VI 

HTHAT  autumn  while  Roosevelt  was  away 
*  on  a  hunting-trip  I  went  on  a  hunt  of  my 
own  that  was  as  exciting,  in  its  way,  I  guess, 
as  anything  that  he  came  across  on  his  trip ; 
and  it  wasn't  wild  animals  I  was  hunting;  it 
was  horses. 

It  happened  that  in  the  spring  the  cow 
boys  of  our  outfit  had  gone  to  ride  one  Sun 
day,  and  when  they  came  back  had  turned 
out  on  the  range  the  horses  they  had  ridden. 
They  did  not  take  the  trouble  to  put  them 
with  the  main  herd,  thinking  the  horses  would 
find  the  herd  themselves.  The  main  herd, 
it  happened,  was  on  the  east  side  of  the 
river.  The  four  horses  were  on  the  west  side. 
Instead  of  joining  the  main  herd  the  horses 
went  southwest,  which  took  them  between  the 
Little  Missouri  River  and  the  Yellowstone. 

We  had  several  hunts  for  them  during  the 
summer,  but  were  never  able  to  find  any 
49 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

trace  of  them.  Just  before  Thanksgiving 
we  heard  that  the  horses  had  been  seen,  and, 
having  a  little  time,  I  concluded  to  make  a 
hunt,  taking  Rowe  with  me.  Dow  remained 
at  home. 

Rowe  and  I  went  directly  to  a  ranch  where, 
we  had  heard,  they  had  seen  the  horses. 
Some  of  the  men  there  told  us  they  had  seen 
them  some  little  time  before,  but  that  there 
was  another  ranch  quite  near  where  the 
horses  had  been  seen  more  recently.  It  was 
near  night  when  we  got  to  this  second  ranch. 
We  explained  our  business  to  the  man  in 
charge  and  asked  for  a  place  to  stay  all  night. 
He  said  he  was  glad  to  have  us.  That  was 
the  fashion  at  that  time.  Any  ranchman  was 
welcome  at  the  ranch  of  another  ranchman. 
He  had  seen  the  horses  two  days  before,  he 
said,  and  felt  quite  sure  he  could  find  them. 
He  said  he  would  go  with  us  the  next  morn 
ing,  as  he  had  lost  a  horse  and  it  might  be 
with  them. 

We  got  up  early  next  morning  and  started. 

I  never  saw  such  a  morning  while  I  was  in 

Dakota.     It  was  foggy  and  both  grass  and 

bushes  were  heavily  loaded  with  mist.    When 

50 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

we  first  started  we  could  see  but  a  little,  but 
our  guide  was  used  to  the  country  and  he 
knew  where  to  go.  We  went  to  the  place 
where  he  had  seen  the  horses  and  found  their 
tracks  in  the  soft  ground  round  a  spring.  It 
was  evident  that  they  had  been  there  quite 
recently. 

The  fog  had  now  begun  to  lift.  We  divided, 
all  going  east  toward  the  head  of  the  valley, 
but  Rowe  and  our  guide  taking  one  side, 
while  I  took  the  other. 

After  riding  a  mile  or  two  I  saw  three 
horses  a  long  way  off.  I  examined  them  with 
my  glass  and  found  they  were  our  horses 
and  that  they  were  watching  something.  A 
second  later  I  saw  that  the  object  they  were 
looking  at  was  the  other  two  men,  who  were 
nearer  to  them  than  I  was.  Suddenly  the 
three  horses  started.  After  them  I  went,  as 
fast  as  I  could  go.  They  disappeared  over 
a  rise  in  the  land  and  the  two  riders  dis 
appeared  after  them. 

I  was  alone  and  some  distance  behind  and 
doubted  if  I  would  see  either  the  horses  or 
the  men  again  that  day,  but  after  riding  on 
for  a  few  miles  I  came  upon  the  two  men 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

waiting  for  me.  The  horses  had  turned  to 
the  right  and  the  men  thought  I  would  miss 
the  animals  if  they  went  on.  We  turned  and 
rode  on  in  the  direction  that  the  horses  were 
last  seen.  Finally  we  came  in  sight  of  the 
runaways  again.  They  seemed  to  be  trying 
to  get  to  the  east  into  rough  country.  I  had 
been  rather  gaining,  and  about  this  time  had 
got  the  lead  and  was  trying  to  head  them  to 
the  west  where  it  was  smoother  and  there 
was  a  creek. 

By  this  time  the  fog  had  lifted  and  I  could 
see  perfectly.  We  began  to  get  into  rough 
country  cut  up  with  deep  washouts,  the  sides 
being  cut  perpendicular  through  the  clay. 
The  gullies  were  anywhere  from  six  to  thirty 
feet  deep  and  anywhere  from  two  to  six  or 
eight  feet  wide.  The  wild  horses  leaped 
them.  I  wondered  what  my  horse  was  go 
ing  to  do.  I  found  quickly  enough  that  he 
wasn't  going  to  let  himself  be  stumped.  He 
leaped  the  gullies  just  like  the  wild  horses. 
At  first,  when  I  looked  down  into  those 
gulches,  it  looked  a  little  risky,  but  I  decided 
that  my  horse  knew  his  business,  so  I  gave 
him  his  head  and  didn't  try  to  rein  him  at  all, 
52 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

as  I  was  afraid  I  might  bother  him.  We  leaped 
gulch  after  gulch  in  safety.  At  one  time  we 
came  to  a  very  steep  hill,  which  the  wild 
horses  ran  down  full  speed.  My  horse  fol 
lowed  at  the  same  gait.  It  seemed  almost  im 
possible  to  me  for  him  to  keep  his  feet,  as  it 
was  not  only  steep,  but  full  of  round  stones 
which  the  horses  had  started  and  which  kept 
rolling  along  with  him. 

After  plunging  down  this  slope,  we  came 
to  a  dry  creek.  It  was  quite  wide,  perhaps 
fifty  yards  across.  The  horses  followed  an 
old  buffalo  trail,  which  took  them  down  into 
the  creek.  From  this  creek  they  ran  directly 
into  another  one.  My  horse  didn't  follow  the 
leaders.  He  took  a  straight  cut  across  the 
creek.  The  wall  was  perpendicular.  He 
leaped  over  it.  It  was  somewhere  between 
six  and  eight  feet  to  the  bottom,  but  he 
landed  right  enough  and  made  a  charge  at 
the  opposite  side.  I  hadn't  much  time  to 
look,  but  I  couldn't  see  any  way  that  he 
could  get  up  over  that  steep  bank  and 
thought  he  was  a  fool  for  trying  it.  I  let 
him  go,  however,  and  don't  know  yet  how 
he  ever  made  it,  but  when  he  finally  landed 
53 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

he  was  on  his  side  and  I  was  astraddle  of 
him  on  the  ground.  He  jumped  up  under  me. 
I  got  my  feet  into  the  stirrups  and  we  went  on. 

We  next  came  to  a  large  and  very  steep  hill 
as  round  as  a  pot.  It  was  too  steep  to  climb 
and  the  runaways  turned  to  the  right  to  circle 
it.  I  was  letting  my  horse  go  exactly  as  he 
pleased.  He  turned  to  the  left.  We  raced 
around  the  hill,  which  butted  against  another 
creek.  The  bank  must  have  been  a  hundred 
feet  high.  Between  the  bank  of  the  creek  and 
the  base  of  this  steep  hill  that  we  had  been 
following  was  a  smooth,  level  place  eight  or 
ten  feet  wide,  where  the  buffaloes  had  had  a 
trail  years  before. 

Right  at  the  narrowest  part  of  this  trail  I 
met  the  horses.  They  threw  up  their  heads, 
stopped,  and  looked  at  us  for  an  instant.  I 
thought  I  could  see  disappointment  in  their 
faces  as  much  as  I  could  in  the  faces  of  human 
beings,  as  much  as  to  say,  "We  are  beat." 
They  turned  and  trotted  off  westward  a  short 
distance,  then  stopped  entirely  and  walked 
down  to  a  creek  and  drank.  They  crossed  the 
creek,  and  when  we  got  up  on  some  high  land 
I  looked  back  and  could  see  my  two  compan- 
54 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

ions  a  long  way  behind.  I  waited  until  they 
overtook  me. 

The  Texan  knew  just  where  he  was  and 
what  to  do.  He  said  there  was  a  band  of  ten 
horses  somewhere  very  near  and  the  two 
bands  would  fight  each  other  very  quickly 
if  we  did  not  look  out.  There  was  a  corral 
very  near  us,  he  said,  and  we  could  drive  our 
horses  all  into  that.  We  did  so,  and  he,  being 
an  expert  with  a  lasso,  caught  our  horses 
for  us. 

We  celebrated  our  capture  of  the  horses  and 
Thanksgiving  Day  at  the  same  time  in  a  way 
I  sha'n't  ever  forget. 

It  was  two  cays  before  Thanksgiving  that 
we  caught  the  horses,  and  we  spent  that  night 
at  a  ranch  near  by.  The  next  morning  we 
left  the  horses  we  had  caught  at  this  ranch 
for  the  folks  there  to  keep  until  we  came  back, 
and  started  for  the  mountains  to  find  the 
fourth  horse  that  we  were  after. 

We  rode  forty  miles  that  day  and  spent 
the  night  at  Glendive.  Next  morning  we 
crossed  the  Yellowstone  River  by  ferry  and 
started  for  the  Kavanaugh  Ranch,  where  we 
hoped  to  find  the  lost  horse.  It  was  early  in 
55 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

the  morning  when  we  started,  and  the  fog  on 
the  Yellowstone  River  was  so  thick  that  we 
missed  our  way  and  took  the  longest  way  to 
the  place  we  were  aiming  at.  Along  toward 
noon  we  began  to  be  hungry.  We  remembered 
that  it  was  Thanksgiving  Day  and  somehow 
that  didn't  make  our  appetites  any  less.  It 
looked  to  us  pretty  clear  that  we  had  a  fair 
prospect  of  missing  our  Thanksgiving  dinner. 

We  began  to  look  around  for  a  ranch  where 
we  thought  that  people  might  be  celebrating, 
but  all  of  the  shacks  or  buildings  we  came  to 
were  deserted.  About  noon  we  got  on  to 
some  high  land  and  from  there,  about  a  mile 
away,  we  saw  a  small  house  from  which  smoke 
was  rising.  Since  there  was  smoke  there  we 
knew  there  must  be  fire,  and  if  there  was  a 
fire  there  must  be  people.  Rowe  and  I  began 
to  cheer  up. 

We  rode  over  to  the  house,  and  there  in 
front  of  it  was  a  man  cutting  up  a  pig.  Rowe 
said  that  it  reminded  him  of  the  old  country, 
and  we  both  decided  that  it  looked  like  a  good 
place  to  stop  for  dinner.  The  man  seemed  to 
be  glad  to  have  us.  There  were  some  people 
coming  from  another  ranch,  he  said,  and  they 
56 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

were  going  to  have  a  Thanksgiving  dinner. 
That  suited  me  exactly  right,  and  as  he  was 
having  some  difficulty  cutting  up  the  pig,  I 
offered  to  help  him.  When  we  got  through 
with  that  pig  he  asked  me  to  help  him  with 
another. 

"Bring  on  your  pig,"  I  said. 

Just  as  we  got  that  pig  cut  up  the  people 
began  to  come.  It  proved  to  be  Kavanaugh, 
the  very  man  we  were  looking  for,  who  had 
ridden  over  from  his  ranch  with  his  sister. 

We  had  our  Thanksgiving  dinner,  all  right, 
and  a  mighty  good  one  it  was. 

This  was  the  pleasantest  and  wildest  ride 
that  I  ever  had.  I  learned  something  about 
horses.  A  good,  well-fed  horse,  with  a  man 
on  his  back,  will  outrun  any  wild  horse.  I 
think  the  horse  that  has  been  fed  has  more 
endurance  and  has  been  exercised  and  hard 
ened  to  it.  Besides,  I  have  an  idea  that  he 
gets  something  of  the  spirit  of  the  man  who 
rides  him.  The  three  wild  horses  were  pretty 
well  tired  out.  One  was  a  smallish  black 
horse,  and  at  the  end  of  the  chase  I  saw  great 
flakes  of  white  foam  fly  off  from  his  flanks.  I 
had  read  of  that,  but  had  never  seen  it  before. 

6  57 


CHAPTER  VII 

WE  had  many  great  times  together,  those 
years  we  were  out  in  Dakota,  and  we 
had  some  real  adventures  like  the  kind  I 
used  to  read  about  when  I  was  a  boy.  The 
best  of  them  all  happened  the  last  year  we 
were  out  there.  It  was  this  way. 

Sometime  early  that  spring  Dow  and  I  had 
crossed  the  river  and  hunted  for  a  while  in 
the  rough  hills  to  the  east,  killing  four  deer 
which  we  had  hung  in  a  tree  to  prevent  the 
coyotes  from  eating  them.  We  knew  that 
Roosevelt  was  coming  out  soon  and  we 
wanted  to  be  prepared  with  some  meat. 

About  this  time  the  thaw  started  to  the 
south  on  the  Little  Missouri  River  and  cre 
ated  a  flood  which,  as  it  worked  north  down 
the  river,  met  with  more  resistance  and  thicker 
ice.  The  flood  finally  burst  through  and  went 
down  the  river  with  the  great  ice  gorge.  As 
58 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

the  water  burst  through  the  channel  of  the 
stream  the  ice  would  pile  high  until  the  press 
ure  of  the  water  burst  a  channel  through  the 
center,  which  left  the  ice  piled  in  abrupt 
walls  on  either  side.  It  passed  by  our  place 
with  a  tremendous  roar  and  crash. 

After  Roosevelt  came  out  we  decided  to  go 
and  get  the  deer.  He  went  with  us.  We  had 
a  small,  light  boat  which  we  kept  for  the  pur 
pose  of  crossing  the  stream  when  the  water 
was  high,  as  it  was  impossible  to  ford  it  then. 
It  was  dangerous  enough  navigating  even  with 
a  small  skiff,  but  we  crossed  and  went  to  the 
place  where  the  deer  were. 

Mountain-lions  have  no  respect  for  deer 
even  if  they  are  hung  up,  and  we  discovered 
that  they  had  eaten  our  meat-supply.  Theo 
dore  had  his  rifle,  and  we  followed  the  tracks 
for  some  distance,  but  the  lions,  we  found, 
had  gone  to  some  distance,  and  as  darkness 
was  falling  we  gave  up  the  chase  and  went 
home.  On  the  way,  Theodore  stopped  at  the 
shack  of  an  old  hunter  who  lived  on  the  op 
posite  side  of  the  river  from  us,  and  made 
arrangements  for  the  hunter  to  go  out  with 
him  next  day  and  camp  for  several  days  in 
59 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

the  neighborhood  and  see  if  they  could  not 
get  the  lions. 

That  night  we  had  a  very  strong  wind 
which  blew  so  hard  that  it  fairly  shook  the 
timbers  of  the  house.  Going  out  early  in  the 
morning,  I  discovered  that  our  boat  was  gone. 
We  had  taken  it  out  of  the  water  in  the  only 
place  where  we  could  take  it  out  or  put  it  in, 
on  account  of  the  ice  that  had  piled  on  the 
shore.  I  knew  I  had  hitched  the  boat  the 
night  before,  so  I  didn't  see  how  the  water 
could  have  carried  it  away.  I  examined  the 
rope  and  found  that  it  had  been  cut.  Near  by 
I  found  a  man's  glove  at  the  edge  of  the 
water. 

I  said  nothing  about  this  until  breakfast- 
time.  Theodore  was  talking  all  about  his 
plans  for  crossing  the  stream,  and  I  let  him 
talk  along,  thinking,  "Little  you  know  about 
what's  been  happening."  When  he  was  nearly 
through  I  spoke  up  quietly,  telling  him  I 
did  not  think  he  would  get  across  that 
day. 

He  spoke  up  kind  of  sharply,  wanting  to 
know  why. 

I  told  him  that  we  had  no  boat  and  ex- 
60 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

plained  how  the  boat  had  been  stolen  in  the 
night  after  the  wind  went  down. 

He  said  we  would  saddle  our  horses  and 
follow  immediately. 

I  told  him  that  would  be  no  use.  The  low 
ground  was  overflowed  in  places  so  that  we 
could  not  get  within  a  mile  of  the  stream, 
and  besides  that,  all  that  they  had  to  do  was 
to  keep  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river  to 
be  safe  from  us. 

He  said  that  he  wanted  to  do  something 
and  what  could  we  do? 

I  told  him  I  had  some  boards,  and  I  would 
make  a  boat  and  we  would  follow  them.  Of 
course,  this  would  take  time,  but  I  judged 
that  they  would  feel  perfectly  safe  and  would 
be  in  no  hurry,  as  they  knew  that  there  was 
no  other  boat  on  the  river.  Roosevelt  sent 
the  team  to  Medora  to  get  provisions  and  I 
worked  on  the  boat  as  fast  as  I  could.  It 
took  me  about  three  days  to  build  that  boat. 
When  it  was  made  we  took  what  provisions 
we  thought  that  we  should  need,  left  Rowe 
in  charge  of  the  women-folks,  and  started  off. 

It  was  a  strange,  wild,  desolate  country  of 
rough  and  barren  bad  lands  that  we  passed 
61 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

through  as  we  drifted  with  the  current.  I 
think  there  had  never  been  but  two  parties 
to  go  down  the  stream  before  in  boats,  and 
one  came  to  a  sad  end  not  far  below  where 
we  lived.  One  of  the  hunters  was  killed  by  a 
grizzly  and  the  other  abandoned  the  voyage. 

We  were  warned  by  the  old  hunter  of  many 
dangers  from  bad  water  in  the  stream,  but 
we  were  used  to  such  navigation  from  back 
in  Maine  and  had  no  great  trouble.  The  cow 
boys  and  hunters  were  mostly  bow-legged  and 
past-masters  at  riding,  but  they  were  not  web- 
footed  and  used  to  riding  logs  and  handling 
boats  in  rough  waters  the  way  Dow  and  I 
were. 

Our  progress  was  very  slow  and  we  saw 
many  sights  strange  and  unusual  to  an  Eastern 
man.  One  day  as  we  were  passing  a  very  steep, 
high  bank,  we  noticed  a  great  boulder,  which 
looked  as  if  it  might  fall  any  minute.  We  had 
scarcely  got  by  it  when  it  did  fall  in.  The 
wave  that  it  created  gave  our  boat  a  great 
lift,  but  it  did  no  damage.  At  another  time 
we  passed  for  a  long  distance  between  very 
high  and  steep  banks.  Up  in  the  bank,  per 
haps  seventy-five  feet  from  the  water,  on  one 
62 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

side  was  a  coal  vein,  which  was  on  fire,  and 
flames  were  issuing  from  various  veins  on 
the  other  bank.  I  think  this  continued  for 
half  a  mile  at  least,  and  it  gave  the  whole 
country  a  very  strange  appearance.  One 
could  hardly  imagine  a  more  desolate  region. 
The  bare  clay  hills,  cut  up  with  numerous 
washouts,  and  the  brown  dry  grass,  made  a 
scene  of  desolation  such  as  we  had  never  seen 
before.  Game  was  very  scarce  and  we  had  to 
subsist  on  the  provisions  we  had  brought  with 
us.  It  was  several  days  before  we  camped  at 
a  place  where  game  was  plenty.  We  killed 
two  deer  before  breakfast  next  morning,  and 
thought  that  we  were  very  well  supplied  then. 
About  the  third  day,  sometime  in  the  early 
afternoon,  we  came  to  a  short  turn  in  the 
stream  where  the  ice  had  all  left  the  point. 
I  was  steering  the  boat  and  Roosevelt  and 
Dow  were  both  in  the  forward  part,  talking 
and  having  a  good  time.  As  we  turned  the 
point  I  saw  the  boats  of  the  outlaws  hitched 
on  the  point  where  the  ice  had  all  gone  away, 
so  that  they  could  get  on  the  shore.  There 
were  a  few  small  cottonwood-bushes  from 
which  there  arose  a  little  cloud  of  smoke. 
63 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

I  said  to  Roosevelt,  "There  are  the  boats!" 

They  had  taken  off  their  pistols,  and  I  said : 
"6et  your  arms  on,  boys,  and  get  ready. 
When  the  boat  strikes  the  shore  you  go  into 
the  camp  as  quick  as  you  can  get  there."  I 
was  in  the  stern  of  the  boat,  steering,  and  as 
the  current  was  swift  it  was  quite  difficult  to 
make  the  landing. 

Dow  and  Roosevelt  buckled  on  their  pistols, 
grasped  their  rifles,  and  sprang  to  the  shore. 
Roosevelt  was  ahead,  Dow  pulling  the  rope 
of  the  boat  as  far  as  he  could  as  he  ran. 

T  jumped  ashore  after  him,  grabbed  the 
rope,  and  hitched  the  boat. 

I  heard  Theodore  shout,  "Put  up  your 
hands!"  By  the  time  that  I  got  to  the  fire 
everything  was  quiet. 

An  old  German,  named  Christopher  Whar- 
finberger,  was  the  only  man  in  the  camp.  He 
was  not  at  all  dangerous.  He  was  an  oldish 
man;  I  don't  think  he  was  naturally  bad, 
but  he  drank  so  much  poor  whisky  that  he 
had  lost  most  of  the  manhood  that  he  ever 
possessed.  He  offered  no  resistance,  and  in 
fact  I  think  he  was  rather  glad  to  be  our 
prisoner.  He  told  us  that  the  other  two  mem- 
64 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

bers  of  the  thieving  party,  one  a  young  man 
named  Finnegan  and  the  other  a  half-breed 
named  Bernstead,  had  prevailed  on  him  to 
go  with  them  down  to  Mandan,  telling  him 
what  a  nice,  pleasant  time  they  would  have 
floating  down  the  water  and  how  he  could 
catch  a  lot  of  fish,  while  I  really  do  not  think 
there  was  a  fish  in  the  river  for  them  to  catch. 
The  reason  they  wanted  him  was  because  he 
had  a  little  money  and  they  had  none.  They 
got  him  to  buy  some  provisions,  and  stole 
everything  that  they  had  themselves. 

We  searched  the  old  man,  took  his  gun  and 
his  knives  from  him  and  told  him  that  if  he 
did  exactly  as  he  was  told  we  should  use  him 
well,  but  if  he  disobeyed  or  tried  to  signal  the 
other  men  we  would  kill  him  instantly.  He 
believed  this  and  was  very  humble  and  sub 
missive.  I  think  that,  as  simple  as  he  was,  he 
felt  safer  with  us  than  he  did  with  them, 
which  I  think  was  a  fact.  I  think  that  if 
the  men  felt  that  it  was  to  their  advantage, 
they  would  have  left  him  or  killed  him  at  any 
time.  We  told  him  to  keep  the  fire  burning, 
just  as  he  had  been  doing,  and  he  readily 
promised  to  do  so. 

65 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

We  then  held  a  short  council  of  war  to  de 
cide  just  what  we  were  going  to  do.  Theodore 
thought  we  had  better  destroy  their  camp, 
take  old  Chris,  and  go  along.  The  two 
younger  men  being  away,  he  didn't  see  just 
how  we  could  get  them,  although  he  was 
very  anxious  to  do  so. 

As  I  was  the  oldest  man  in  the  party,  the 
two  younger  men  looked  to  me  for  advice. 
I  told  them  that  I  thought  we  could  get  them. 
"We  will  remain  concealed  in  the  camp,  and 
when  they  come  back  well  take  them,"  I 
said.  I  felt  pretty  sure  they  would  be  back 
at  night.  Theodore  readily  agreed  to  this 
proposal. 

The  river,  at  the  place  where  we  were  con 
cealed,  had  double  banks.  The  water,  at  the 
present  time,  flowed  in  its  natural  channel, 
but  at  times,  when  the  water  had  been  higher, 
it  had  risen  above  the  bank  that  the  camp 
was  situated  on  and  cut  a  wider  channel,  leav 
ing  a  second  square  bank  about  five  feet  high. 

My  idea  was  to  hide  behind  that  bank  and 
wait  the  coming  of  the  other  two  men.  They 
would  be  obliged  to  come  right  up  in  front 
of  us,  as  the  river  was  at  our  backs. 
66 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

Before  us,  the  ground  was  as  level  as  a 
house  floor  and  for  about  one  hundred  yards 
had  nothing  on  it  but  short  dead  grass. 
There  was  no  chance  for  any  cover  for  a  man 
on  that.  Behind  it,  to  the  east,  lay  a  wide 
stretch  of  level  bottom  covered  with  sage 
brush  which  grew  about  as  high  as  a  man's 
waist.  Beyond  that  was  a  fringe  of  bushes, 
growing  along  the  foot  of  the  clay  cliff,  and 
beyond  the  bushes  were  the  rough  and  barren 
"Bad  Lands,"  cut  up  by  numerous  gulches 
and  watercourses. 

The  wind  had  all  gone  down,  and  it  was 
very  still.  You  could  hear  nothing  but  the 
rush  of  the  river. 

About  an  hour  before  sunset  we  heard  the 
men  coming,  even  before  they  were  in  sight. 
They  were  crawling  through  the  stunted 
bushes  at  the  foot  of  the  clay  hill.  They  came 
in  sight  soon  after  and  started  to  go  up  the 
stream. 

Theodore  said :  "  We  are  going  to  lose  them. 
They  are  not  coming  to  camp.'* 

I  said :  "I  think  not.  I  think  they  are  look 
ing  for  the  camp  smoke." 

Suddenly  they  saw  it  and  came  straight 
67 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

toward  us  through  the  sage-brush.  We  allowed 
them  to  come  into  the  smooth,  grassy  space 
and  when  they  were  about  twenty  paces  from 
us,  where  there  was  no  possible  cover  for 
them,  we  three  rose  from  behind  the  clay 
bank. 

Theodore  commanded  them  to  "hold  up.'* 

The  half-breed  dropped  his  gun  and  threw 
up  his  hands,  but  Finnegan,  who  carried  his 
rifle  across  his  left  arm,  stood  evidently  un 
decided. 

Dow  snapped  out,  "Damn  you,  drop  that 
rifle!" 

He  seemed  to  understand  that  better  than 
he  did  Theodore's  pleasant  command.  He 
told  Dow  afterward  that  he  was  looking  to 
see  if  there  was  any  possible  chance  and  that 
when  Dow  spoke  to  him  he  realized  there 
wasn't. 

We  then  proceeded  to  search  them.  They 
were  well  armed  with  Winchester  rifles, 
Smith  &  Wesson  revolvers,  and  knives. 
We  took  all  their  weapons  away  from  them 
and  told  them  just  what  we  told  the  old  man, 
that  if  they  obeyed  orders  and  made  no 
attempt  to  escape,  we  should  use  them  well, 
68 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

otherwise  we  should  shoot  them  instantly. 
That  was  a  kind  of  a  fashion  in  the  country 
and  they  knew  very  well  what  it  meant.  I 
then  took  the  old  double-barrel,  ten-gage 
Parker  shot-gun  down. 

Dow  had  cautioned  me  about  handling 
this  gun  when  they  were  coming  in.  He  said 
the  right-hand  barrel  went  off  very  easily  and 
that  he  had  discharged  it  several  times  when 
he  hadn't  meant  to,  and,  as  he  knew  that  I 
was  going  to  use  it  to  cover  the  men,  he 
cautioned  me  to  be  careful. 

I  told  him  I  would,  but  if  it  happened  to 
go  off  it  would  make  more  difference  to  them 
than  it  would  to  me.  I  hadn't  come  there  to 
be  killed,  and  if  anybody  was  killed,  I  in 
tended  it  should  be  them.  I  then  showed 
them  the  cartridges,  told  them  there  were 
sixteen  buckshot  in  each  cartridge,  and  that 
that  was  what  would  follow  them  if  they 
made  any  attempt  to  escape. 

I  then  had  them  gather  the  wood  for  the 
night,  while  I  watched  over  them  with  the 
old  gun.  When  they  had  plenty  of  wood  we 
gave  them  one  side  of  the  fire  and  told  them 
to  be  careful  and  not  come  on  our  side  or 
69 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

we  would  shoot.  Of  course,  they  were  used 
to  guns  and  had  a  wholesome  dread  of  a 
double-barrel  shot-gun  with  sixteen  buck 
shot  in  each  barrel. 

Theodore  attempted  to  talk  with  Finnegan, 
but  he  was  grouchy  and  inclined  to  be  saucy, 
so  we  thought  the  best  thing  to  do  with  him 
was  to  let  him  alone  until  he  felt  better. 

I  took  their  shoes  away  from  them  that 
night,  and  put  them  on  our  side  of  the  fire. 
The  cactuses  were  pretty  thick  and  I  knew 
it  wouldn't  be  pleasant  traveling  in  their 
stocking  feet.  After  they  lay  down  I  took  the 
old  gun  and  watched  them  until  twelve 
o'clock;  then  Theodore  watched  them,  with 
the  old  gun,  until  morning.  The  next  night 
Dow  and  I  took  the  watch  while  Theodore 
slept;  so  every  third  night,  one  of  us  slept 
all  night;  the  other  two,  half  a  night  each. 

The  next  morning  after  the  capture  we 
started  down-stream.  We  did  not  know  that 
there  was  an  ice  jam  ahead,  but  we  soon  found 
it  out.  We  learned  afterward  that  that  was 
what  had  held  up  the  thieves.  We  were 
obliged  to  return  to  the  camp  and  stay  there 
until  the  ice  started  down  on  the  river.  It 
70 


ROOSEVELT   GUARDING  FINNEGAN   AND   COMPANY 


DOW   AND    SEWALL   IN  THE   DUGOUT   WITH   THE   LOOT   OF   THE   THIEVES 

(Photograph  by  Theodore  Roosevelt) 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

was  about  a  week  before  the  ice  broke  up  at 
all.  In  the  mean  time  our  provisions  ran  short. 
We  had  nothing  but  flour  left,  and  no  baking- 
powder,  and  the  bread  made  of  the  muddy 
water  without  baking-powder  was  not  very 
palatable.  The  addition  to  our  crew  had 
been  hard  on  the  provisions,  as  the  thieves  had 
soon  eaten  all  that  they  had  themselves  and 
we  had  had  to  furnish  food  for  the  whole 
party. 

This  time  we  were  in  a  very  barren  and 
desolate  region.  Although  we  hunted  some, 
we  failed  to  find  any  game.  After  a  few  days 
it  began  to  look  as  if  we  had  gotten  pretty 
nearly  to  the  end  of  our  provisions  of  any 
kind. 

We  held  another  council  of  war.  Theodore 
thought  we  should  have  to  let  the  thieves  go, 
we  had  so  little  to  eat.  He  didn't  want  to 
kill  them  and  he  couldn't  see  what  we  could 
do  but  let  them  go. 

I  didn't  want  to  let  them  go  and  he  really 
didn't,  but  he  could  hardly  see  what  we 
could  do  under  the  circumstances.  The  ice 
jam  was  something  we  hadn't  reckoned  on, 
neither  had  the  thieves.  However,  I  thought 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

we  could  stand  it  a  little  longer  on  what  we 
had,  and  perhaps  something  would  happen. 
It  would  punish  the  thieves  as  badly  as  us, 
and,  as  Theodore  was  always  the  last  man  to 
quit,  he  agreed  to  my  proposal. 

The  next  day  I  crossed  the  river  and  spent 
the  day  trying  to  find  a  ranch.  We  knew 
there  were  some  somewhere  below  us,  but  we 
didn't  know  how  far.  When  I  came  back  at 
night  I  saw  a  bunch  of  cattle  not  far  from 
where  we  were  camped.  I  told  my  compan 
ions  of  my  lack  of  success  and  we  decided  that 
Dow  and  Theodore  would  go  down  the  stream 
the  next  day  and  explore  the  side  we  were 
camped  on.  If  they  didn't  succeed  in  finding 
a  ranch  we  would  kill  one  of  the  cattle.  They 
took  an  empty  tomato-can,  which  we  hap 
pened  to  have,  so  that  if  they  had  to  kill 
one  of  the  animals,  they  could  leave  word 
saying  who  did  it  and  why.  It  was  rather 
risky  business  to  kill  other  folks's  cattle. 

They  were  absent  all  day,  while  I  stayed  at 
the  camp  and  watched  the  thieves.  About 
sunset  I  saw  them  coming  a  long  way  off 
and  could  tell  that  Dow  was  loaded.  They 
had  found  a  ranch  and  got  flour,  baking- 
72 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

powder,  bacon,  sugar,  and  coffee.  We  soon 
commenced  to  prepare  the  meal,  as  the 
thieves  and  I  were  hungry.  Dow  and  Roose 
velt  had  eaten  at  the  ranch  and,  of  course, 
their  appetites  were  not  quite  so  sharp.  We 
had  a  good  supper  and  even  the  thieves  felt 
quite  happy. 

Roosevelt  had  made  arrangements  with 
the  ranchman  for  us  to  get  a  team  there,  so 
the  next  morning  we  started  afoot  to  the 
ranch.  We  got  there  about  noon  and  stayed 
there  until  the  next  morning ;  then  we  started 
for  another  ranch,  which  was  about  fifteen 
miles  farther  on.  The  thieves  didn't  enjoy 
this  walk,  but  they  had  to  take  it,  for  the 
ranch  was  the  camp  of  an  old  frontiersman 
who,  we  had  heard,  had  a  team  that  we  needed 
to  take  the  thieves  to  the  county  jail  at 
Dickinson. 

We  found  the  teamster  a  large,  powerfully 
built  man  with  a  deeply  wrinkled,  sunburnt, 
tough  old  face  that  looked  about  like  the 
instep  of  an  old  boot  that  had  lain  out  in  the 
weather  for  years;  but  he  was  a  good  man 
for  the  job.  When  we  arrived  at  his  camp  he 
stepped  up  to  Finnegan  and  held  out  his 
7  73 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

hand  to  shake  hands  with  him.  As  he  did 
so,  he  said,  "Finnegan,  you  damned  thief, 
what  have  you  been  doing  now?" 

It  was  evident  that  he  knew  the  man. 

Finnegan  told  him  he  had  been  acting  out 
the  fool  again.  He  seemed  to  be  disgusted 
with  himself  a  good  deal  of  the  time.  At  one 
time  I  saw  him  kick  an  old  tin  can  and,  ask 
ing  him  what  he  did  it  for,  he  told  me  that  he 
did  it  because  he  couldn't  kick  himself. 

Shortly  after  meeting  Finnegan,  the  old 
man  said  to  me:  "I  know  that  fellow.  He 
was  always  a  damn'  thief.  I  had  him  in  my 
care  once  for  nine  months  with  a  ball  and 
chain  hitched  to  his  foot." 

Roosevelt  took  the  thieves  to  town  and  de 
livered  them  to  the  sheriff,  who  took  them 
before  the  magistrate.  Theodore  made  no 
complaint  against  old  Chris.  He  told  the 
magistrate  that  he  was  that  "kind  of  a  person 
who  was  not  capable  of  doing  either  much 
good  or  much  harm,"  whereupon  old  Chris 
thanked  him  very  fervently.  Roosevelt  said 
that  that  was  the  first  time  he  ever  had  a 
man  thank  him  for  calling  him  a  fool. 

The  other  two  men  were  bound  over  to  the 
74 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

September  term  of  court  and  had  their  trial 
the  next  fall.  They  got  twenty-five  months 
and  were  still  in  jail  when  we  came  home. 
After  my  return  East  I  received  a  letter  from 
one  of  the  neighbors  in  the  "Bad  Lands,"  who 
told  me  that  after  Finnegan  got  out  of  jail 
he  went  up  into  Montana  and  went  to  steal 
ing  horses.  He  was  hung  there  as  a  horse- 
thief.  I  heard  then  that  he  was  quite  a  noted 
thief  and  rather  a  careless  man  with  firearms. 
Just  before  he  stole  the  boat  they  had  him 
down  to  Mandan  on  account  of  a  shooting- 
affair.  He  had  got  drunk  in  town  and  had 
discharged  his  rifle.  The  bullet  went  through 
the  walls  of  a  building.  It  happened  that 
the  man  occupying  this  building  was  the 
editor  of  a  little  paper.  The  bullet  passed 
under  the  man's  chin  and,  as  he  had  quite 
long  whiskers,  cut  part  of  them  off.  The 
editor  was  rather  unreasonable  and  didn't 
like  to  have  his  whiskers  trimmed  that  way. 
He  objected  so  strongly,  in  fact,  that  Finne 
gan  was  arrested  and  taken  to  Mandan.  The 
magistrate  decided  that  it  was  only  a  drunken 
accident,  and,  as  there  was  nothing  hit  but 
whiskers,  concluded  to  let  him  go. 
75 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HPHE  morning  that  Theodore  started  to 
•*•  Dickinson  with  the  thieves,  Dow  and  I 
started  back  to  the  ranch  we  had  left  the 
day  before.  We  stayed  there  that  night  and 
went  back  to  where  we  had  left  the  boats  the 
next  day.  By  this  time  the  ice  was  gone,  so 
we  went  back  to  the  ranch  that  night,  gave 
the  ranchman  one  of  the  boats,  took  the 
one  that  I  had  made  and  our  own  little  boat 
and  started  down  the  river. 

We  then  took  an  inventory  of  the  outfit 
that  the  thieves  had  left.  They  had  entered 
every  ranch  on  the  river,  where  the  owners 
happened  to  be  away,  and  helped  themselves. 
They  had  three  sacks  full  of  books,  maga 
zines,  and  papers';  they  had  all  kinds  of  read 
ing.  There  was  everything  in  those  sacks  but 
Bibles.  I  don't  remember  seeing  any  of  them. 
They  also  had  deer  heads  mounted,  sheep 
76 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

heads  and  everything  that  they  thought  they 
could  sell. 

We  now  had  a  long  stretch  of  river  before 
us  and  an  uninhabited  country,  with  only 
a  ranch  here  and  there.  We  had  gotten  rid 
of  the  thieves  and,  although  we  had  lost 
Theodore  and  were  sorry  that  he  had  to  go 
alone,  we  felt  greatly  relieved  ourselves.  We 
now  planned  to  have  some  sport.  We  were 
beginning  to  see  ducks  and  wild  geese,  and 
hoped  that  we  might  see  larger  game.  We 
had  quite  a  long  distance  to  go  on  the  Little 
Missouri  River  before  we  got  into  the  Big 
Missouri  and  had  to  go  through  the  Gros- 
ventre  Reservation.  While  there  was  a  strong 
current  in  the  stream,  the  stream  was  so 
crooked  that  we  often  were  going  against 
the  wind,  which  made  our  progress  very 
slow  at  times. 

One  afternoon  Dow  called  my  attention 
to  something  on  the  top  of  a  high,  grassy  hill. 
It  looked,  in  the  distance,  like  a  small  spruce- 
bush,  but  I  knew  there  was  no  spruce  in 
that  country.  He  asked  me  what  I  thought 
it  was,  and  I  told  him  I  thought  it  was  an 
Indian  with  a  blanket  on.  He  took  the  glass 
77 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

and  looked  and  said  that  that  was  just  what 
it  was. 

He  said,  "What  do  you  suppose  the  fool 
is  doing  there?" 

I  said,  "I  suppose  he  is  watching  us.** 

There  was  a  large  bend  in  the  river  and  he 
was  in  sight  a  long  while,  but  we  never  could 
see  that  he  moved  or  changed  his  position  a 
mite.  About  the  time  we  were  getting  past 
him  two  wild  geese  came  flying  up  the  stream. 
Dow,  who  was  the  nearest  to  a  dead  shot  to 
any  man  I  have  ever  known,  caught  up  his 
gun  and  shot  them  both  down.  The  next 
bend  we  went  around  we  saw  quite  a  party 
of  Indians  on  the  shore.  They  had  heard 
the  shooting  and  had  run  down  to  the  shore 
with  their  guns. 

We  didn't  want  them  to  think  we  were 
afraid  of  them,  so  we  landed  and  tried  to  talk 
with  them.  We  didn't  succeed  in  talking  very 
much.  They  made  us  understand  that  they 
wanted  us  to  go  to  their  camp  with  them, 
which  was  back  from  the  river  a  piece,  as 
it  was  near  night;  but  we  didn't  wish  to  go 
to  an  Indian  camp  and  stay  all  night,  as  there 
are  always  too  many  uninvited  guests  there. 
78 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

About  the  only  thing  the  Indians  could 
say  was  "Shug."  They  all  wanted  sugar. 
We  had  a  great  plenty,  so  I  took  a  dipper 
and  dipped  out  a  pint,  while  an  old^fellow 
came  with  his  old  black  hat,  which  looked 
as  though  it  might  be  about  as  old  as  the 
Indian.  I  dumped  the  sugar  into  it.  Another 
one  came  with  what  was  once  a  red  cotton 
handkerchief.  As  it  probably  never  had  been 
washed  since  it  was  bought  from  the  trader, 
I  was  not  really  sure  what  it  was.  However, 
I  dumped  the  pint  of  sugar  in  it.  Dow  gave 
them  one  of  the  pigeon-tailed  duck  he  had 
shot  and  we  went  on  our  way. 

After  we  had  gone  several  miles  we  went 
ashore  to  camp  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
river.  As  the  Indians  didn't  appear  to  have 
any  boats,  we  thought  they  weren't  likely 
to  be  across.  That  night,  which  was  quite 
dark,  they  had  fires  on  the  tops  of  the 
high  hills.  We  didn't  know  what  that  meant, 
but  we  felt  sure  they  were  signal-fires. 

We  had  our  breakfast  early  next  morning. 

We  saw  nothing  of  the  Indians.  We  saw  some 

white  men  with  whom  we  tried  to  talk,  but 

they  were  evidently  afraid  of  us.    When  we 

79 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

started  to  go  toward  them  to  land,  they 
went  in  the  opposite  direction  and  we  made 
no  further  attempt  to  converse  with  them. 
We  were  now  getting  down  pretty  near  the 
Big  Missouri  River.  If  I  remember  right,  we 
got  out  into  it  the  next  day.  It  is  a  hundred 
and  twenty-five  miles  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Little  Missouri  to  Mandan.  That  day  we 
saw  great  quantities  of  geese.  At  one  time 
there  must  have  been  thousands  on  a  gravel 
bar  in  the  middle  of  the  river.  The  current 
was  very  rapid  and  as  we  approached  them 
great  sections  would  rise.  The  air  seemed  to 
be  full  of  geese  and  their  wings  made  a  noise 
like  a  great  wind. 

That  night  we  camped  opposite  a  small 
village.  The  wind  was  bothering  us  and  we 
stopped  early  and  went  over  to  town  and 
bought  some  provisions.  They  told  us  at 
this  place  that  it  was  eighty  miles  from  there 
to  Mandan,  by  the  state  road.  The  next 
morning  we  started  very  early  with  a  swift 
current  and  a  high  wind. 

That  morning  we  came  to  a  place  where 
there  was  a  short  turn  and  where  the  river 
narrowed  so  that  the  current  was  very  strong. 
80 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

We  were  making  rapid  progress  and  when 
we  came  around  the  short  turn  the  wind 
was  blowing  straight  up-stream.  Where  the 
swift  current  and  the  strong  wind  met  it 
made  the  water  very  rough.  We  were  in 
about  the  middle  of  the  stream  and  there 
was  no  way  to  avoid  it. 

I  said  to  Dow,  "That  looks  pretty  saucy.'* 
He  said  he  thought  if  we  laid  our  boat 
about  right  she  would  weather  it,  and  she 
did.  The  wave,  right  where  the  water  and 
wind  met,  stood  almost  square  up  and  down. 
When  the  boat  went  into  that  we  took  in 
water,  but  we  came  through.  That  was  the 
only  place  where  we  found  rough  water. 
After  that  the  course  of  the  river  was  very 
straight.  The  current  was  swift  and  there 
was  a  strong  wind  blowing  down-stream. 
We  went  sometimes  almost  faster  than  we 
cared  to,  and  the  water  was  so  roily  that  we 
could  not  see  anything  under  the  water  and 
the  only  way  we  could  judge  the  depth  was 
by  the  swirl  of  the  current.  There  were  a 
great  many  snags,  but  very  few  stones  and 
rocks. 

That  was  the  swiftest  run  that  I  have  ever 
81 


BILL  SEW  ALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

had  for  a  long  distance.  If  it  was  eighty 
miles  by  the  state  road,  it  must  have  been 
a  good  deal  more  by  the  river,  and  we  made 
Mandan  about  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 
There  we  delivered  up  the  plunder  that  the 
thieves  had  stolen,  also  their  rifles,  pistols,  and 
knives.  We  gave  the  boat  that  I  made  to 
come  down  the  river  to  a  man  with  whom  we 
stopped  that  night  and  who  hauled  our  other 
boat  to  the  station  for  us  the  next  morning. 
Then  we  took  the  train  for  Medora. 

There  was  a  dining-car  on  the  train  at  noon 
and  we  went  in _to  get  our  dinner.  I  suppose 
we  were  about  as  tough  a  looking  pair  as  they 
ever  get  in  a  dining-car.  We  had  been  camp 
ing  along  the  muddy  banks  of  the  Little 
Missouri  for  three  weeks  and,  of  course,  our 
clothes  were  badly  soiled,  to  say  nothing 
about  the  condition  of  what  they  covered. 
The  colored  man  brought  us  a  bill  of  fare. 
I  told  him  we  didn't  want  the  bill  of  fare,  but 
something  to  eat,  as  we  hadn't  had  anything 
for  three  weeks  and  wanted  him  to  bring  all 
he  had. 

He  looked  at  us  a  minute  and  said:  "I 
know  you  fellows.    I  have  seen  you  with  Mr. 
82 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

Roosevelt.  I  will  get  you  a  good  dinner." 
He  did  get  us  a  good  dinner,  the  best  I  have 
ever  had  on  a  dining-car. 

We  arrived  at  Medora  that  night,  and  the 
next  morning  put  our  boat  into  the  Little 
Missouri  and  started  for  our  ranch.  Roosevelt 
had  gotten  back  several  days  ahead  of  us. 
When  he  got  back  the  cattlemen  wanted  to 
know  how  he  made  it.  He  told  them  what  he 
had  done  and  they  told  him  he  was  a  damn 
fool  for  bothering  so  much  with  those  fellows. 
They  said  the  thieves  would  have  killed  him 
if  they  had  got  the  chance,  and  wanted  to 
know  why  he  didn't  kill  them.  No  doubt 
they  would  have  killed  him,  too. 

Theodore  said  that  he  hadn't  gone  out 
there  to  kill  anybody,  but  all  he  intended  to 
do  was  to  defend  himself.  If  there  wasn't 
anybody  else  to  defend  him,  he  intended  to 
protect  himself. 

It  was  thirty  miles  from  Medora  to  our 
ranch  by  the  trail.  We  had  to  cross  the 
river  twenty-two  times,  which  shows  that 
the  river  was  very  crooked.  It  was  probably 
nearly  sixty  miles  by  the  stream.  Dow  and 
I  hurried  down  the  stream  as  fast  as  possible, 
83 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

but  some  places  the  water  had  gotten  low, 
as  the  stream  falls  as  rapidly  as  it  rises,  and 
we  had  to  get  out  in  places  in  order  to  get  by 
the  sand-bars.  It  was  somewhere  near  eleven 
o'clock  when  we  arrived  near  the  ranch. 
Everybody  was  asleep,  the  fires  were  all  out, 
and  we  were  wet  and  cold,  besides  being  hun 
gry.  It  was  not  long  before  there  was  a  com 
motion  in  the  house  and  something  to  eat  was 
forthcoming.  That  good  dinner  that  we  had 
on  the  train  had  gotten  very  lonesome. 

This  had  been  a  trip  that  we  had  all  en 
joyed.  There  had  been  a  good  deal  of  hard 
work  connected  with  it;  some  parts  had 
been  very  pleasant  and  some  very  unpleasant. 
It  had  been  a  very  cold,  barren  time,  for  one 
thing.  It  was  too  early  for  the  leaves  and 
grass  to  be  started  much,  and  the  weather 
had  been  so  cold,  part  of  the  time,  that  it 
had  filled  the  stream  with  anchor  ice.  Still, 
we  were  all  foolish  enough  to  enjoy  most  of 
it,  after  all,  and  looked  back  to  it  with  pleasure 
and  satisfaction.  It  had  been  quite  an  anxious 
time  for  our  wives.  The  old  hunter  who 
lived  near  us  used  to  go  down  to  inquire  for 
us  almost  every  day,  and  while  he  had  tried 
84 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

to  make  it  appear  that  there  was  nothing 
unusual  about  his  calls,  our  wives  knew  he 
was  worried. 

I  was  glad  when  I  realized  that  the  expe 
dition  had  come  to  a  successful  termination. 
I  was  the  oldest  man  in  the  party,  and  the 
two  younger  men  looked  to  me  for  advice  and 
were  always  ready  to  do  as  I  said,  thinking 
that  what  I  thought  was  probably  best.  I 
felt  a  good  deal  of  responsibility.  The  young 
men  were  perfectly  fearless  and  not  afraid  to 
face  anything.  They  were  both  of  a  kind  and 
generous  disposition.  I  had  one  of  the  best 
chances  to  know  the  real  Theodore  Roosevelt 
on  this  expedition.  As  the  Indians  say,  "We 
ate  out  of  the  same  dish  and  slept  under  the 
same  blanket." 


CHAPTER  IX 

'T'HAT  autumn  Theodore  decided  to  go  on 
*  an  elk-hunt,  and  asked  me  to  go  with 
him. 

We  had  been  told  that  elk  had  been  seen 
on  the  west  side  of  the  divide  between  the 
Yellowstone  and  the  Little  Missouri  River, 
and  Roosevelt  decided  to  go  after  them.  He 
employed  the  old  hunter,  who  lived  about 
three  miles  from  us,  to  go  as  a  guide;  a 
thorough  hunter  he  was,  too,  who  knew  more 
about  game  and  their  habits  than  any  man  I 
had  ever  met.  Tompkins  was  his  name. 

He  told  Roosevelt  if  there  were  any  elk 
around  there  he  could  find  them. 

Roosevelt  told  him  if  he  did  he  would 
give  him  fifty  dollars. 

So  we  started  for  the  elk  land.  Tompkins 
drove  the  wagon  which  carried  our  outfit. 
We  traveled  light,  but  in  some  places  it  was 
86 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

all  the  four  horses  could  do  to  haul  the  load, 
the  hills  that  we  climbed  were  so  steep. 

We  struck  from  the  Little  Missouri  west 
toward  the  Yellowstone.  As  we  began  to 
get  to  the  height  of  the  land,  Tompkins  pro 
tested.  *  *  We  are  going  wrong, ' '  he  said.  ' '  If 
there  are  any  elk  in  the  country  they'll  be  on 
the  Little  Missouri  side.'* 

But  Roosevelt  had  been  told  they  were  on 
the  other  side.  He  said  he  would  go  ahead 
and  hunt  there  first  and  if  we  didn't  find  them 
there  we  could  come  back  and  try  the  other 
side. 

We  camped  that  night  at  a  place  called 
Indian  Spring,  near  the  top  of  the  divide 
between  the  Yellowstone  and  the  Little 
Missouri  River,  and  the  next  day  hunted  on 
the  slope  next  to  the  Yellowstone;  but 
though  we  found  old  signs  of  the  elk,  we 
came  on  no  fresh  ones.  The  next  morning 
we  had  a  heavy  thunder-shower  that  kept 
us  in  our  tents  until  nearly  noon.  Then 
the  weather  cleared  off,  and  the  sun  came 
out  very  bright  and  beautiful. 

Tompkins  said  it  was  too  late  to  go  to  the 
Yellowstone  that  day.  "Let's  hunt  back 
87 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

toward  the  Little  Missouri,"  he  said.  "If 
there  are  any  elk  in  the  country  that  is  the 
place  for  them."  The  old  fellow  knew  as 
soon  as  he  ran  his  eye  over  the  country  where 
to  hunt. 

That  afternoon  we  hunted  on  the  slope 
toward  the  Little  Missouri.  Deer  were 
plentiful.  Toward  night  I  found  a  track  of 
a  different  sort.  I  was  a  younger  man  than 
Tompkins  and  perhaps  my  eyes  were  sharper. 
I  called  the  old  man  and  he  said  it  was  an 
elk-track.  Of  course,  it  was  very  fresh,  as  it 
had  showered  heavily  in  the  forenoon. 

We  went  home,  and  returned  to  the  place 
early  next  morning  to  hunt  the  elk,  but  the 
track  went  into  hard  ground  and  we  couldn't 
follow  it.  We  divided  then,  Tompkins  and 
Roosevelt  going  together,  and  I  going  by 
myself. 

I  found  the  fresh  track  of  a  grizzly  that 
had  been  made  the  night  before  or  that 
morning,  and  tried  to  follow  it,  but  that  also 
went  into  the  hard  ground  and  I  lost  it. 
While  I  was  hunting  for  tracks  I  chanced  to 
run  on  to  a  den  where  the  grizzly  had  been 
the  winter  before.  I  had  never  seen  a  grizzly 
88 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

den,  but,  judging  by  the  quantity  of  earth 
dug  from  the  mouth  of  it,  I  supposed  this 
must  be  one. 

In  that  pile  of  dug-out  earth  was  a  fresh 
elk-track. 

I  called  the  hunter  and  Roosevelt.  Tomp- 
kins  agreed  that  it  was  an  elk-track  and  said 
that  the  elk  was  making  for  the  top  of  the 
divide. 

We  rode  as  he  directed,  and,  sure  enough, 
on  the  top  of  the  divide  we  found  the  track 
again. 

The  old  man  surveyed  the  country.  "The 
elk  has  gone  over  the  divide  and  is  heading 
for  the  timber,"  he  said.  After  looking  the 
country  over  he  examined  the  tracks,  which 
were  quite  plain  here.  '  'He's  heading  for  that 
bunch  of  timber,"  he  said,  pointing  to  a 
patch  of  woods  about  a  mile  ahead.  "We'll 
find  him  there." 

He  told  Roosevelt  to  keep  to  the  south  and 
get  around  on  the  southeast  side  of  the 
timber;  then  he  and  I  would  work  down 
from  the  west  and  north.  The  elk  would  run 
with  the  wind,  he  guessed,  and  would  prob 
ably  run  near  Roosevelt. 

8  89 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

I  went  to  the  north,  up  on  a  high  point  of 
clay  where  I  could  see  down  into  the  timber 
and  get  a  pretty  good  view.  I  discovered  the 
elk  lying  down  near  the  middle  of  the  timber, 
very  near  Roosevelt,  but  he  couldn't  see 
him  from  where  he  was.  Soon  after  the 
hunter  got  his  eye  on  the  elk  he  beckoned 
Roosevelt  to  him.  Theodore  crept  forward 
and  fired.  The  elk  jumped  up  and  started 
off.  Roosevelt  fired  two  more  shots  at  him 
and  he  fell. 

We  dressed  the  elk,  fixed  it  as  well  as 
we  could,  and  returned  to  camp.  There  we 
found  Dow  with  a  telegram.  Roosevelt  was 
wanted  at  home. 

Next  morning  we  went  with  the  team  and 
fetched  the  elk,  and  the  day  following  re 
turned  to  the  ranch.  We  divided  the  elk  with 
Tompkins  and  made  out  to  take  care  of  the 
rest  of  it  ourselves. 

Roosevelt  was  obliged  to  leave  for  the  East 
almost  immediately,  and  never  had  a  bite  of 
the  meat.  I  thought  he  missed  a  lot.  It  was 
the  only  elk  meat  I  ever  ate  and  I'll  say  that 
I  never  ate  better  steak. 

While  Theodore  was  in  the  East  two  boy 
90 


ELKHORN   RANCH-HOUSE 


COWPUNCHERS   CONNECTED    WITH   THE    ROOSEVELT    OUTFIT 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

babies  were  born,  one  to  my  wife  and  one 
to  Mrs.  Dow.  There  was  only  a  week's 
difference  in  the  ages.  We  were  a  hundred 
and  ten  miles  from  the  nearest  physician. 
The  only  help  we  could  get  was  the  wife 
of  an  old  hunter  who  lived  several  miles  from 
us.  My  wife  was  terribly  sick.  The  only 
reason  they  did  not  both  die  was  because 
their  time  had  not  come.  But  both  the 
women  lived,  and  are  still  alive,  and  the 
boys  lived  to  make  strong  men. 

Theodore,  when  he  came  back  to  the  ranch, 
about  three  days  after  the  babies  were  born, 
found  me  making  a  cradle  large  enough  to 
hold  both  babies.  He  thought  I  was  making 
too  much  noise;  thought  I  ought  to  be  more 
quiet  about  my  work.  I  told  him  the  noise 
would  be  good  for  them.  He  laughed  about 
that  and  told  that  story  as  long  as  he  lived. 

That  autumn  Roosevelt  went  for  a  hunt 
ing-trip  after  white  goats  in  the  Coeur 
d'Al£ne  Mountains  in  western  Idaho.  Dow 
and  I,  meanwhile,  gathered  up  the  cattle  that 
were  ready  for  the  market  and  Dow  went 
to  Chicago  and  sold  them.  It  turned  out  that 
we  didn't  get  as  much  for  them  as  we  had 
91 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

paid,  to  say  nothing  of  the  trouble  and  ex 
pense  of  keeping  them. 

When  Dow  got  back  we  figured  things  over 
and  made  up  our  minds  that  if  Roosevelt  was 
willing,  the  quicker  we  all  got  out  of  there 
the  less  money  he  would  lose.  We  didn't 
have  any  to  lose;  we  were  safe  enough;  but 
he  did.  We  felt  a  little  diffident  about  saying 
anything  about  it  to  him,  because  the  trade 
he  had  made  with  us  was  altogether  a  one 
sided  affair;  but  it  looked  to  me  as  if  we 
were  throwing  away  his  money,  and  I  didn't 
like  it. 

So  when  he  got  back  from  the  hunt  I  told 
him  about  the  cattle  and  what  they  had 
brought.  He  started  figuring  and  told  me  he 
wanted  to  have  a  talk  with  me.  I  misdoubted 
what  was  coming.  So  I  went  into  his  room 
and  he  told  me  that  he  had  figured  it  out  and 
he  told  me  the  conclusion  he  had  arrived  at. 
I  told  him  that  Dow  and  I  had  figured  it  up 
and  we  had  arrived  at  the  same  conclusion 
exactly — the  quicker  he  got  out  of  there  the 
less  he  would  lose. 

He  never  was  a  man  to  hesitate  about 
making  a  decision  when  he  had  all  of  the 
92 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

facts  in  hand.  He  was  never  afraid  of  facts 
and  of  drawing  the  consequences  from  them. 
He  said,  "How  soon  can  you  go?" 

I  went  in  to  see  the  women  and  they  said 
they  could  not  get  ready  under  ten  days.  I 
went  back  in  to  Roosevelt  and  told  him  that 
we  would  start  ten  days  from  that  day. 

Theodore  left  one  day  ahead  of  us,  and 
the  day  before  he  left  he  and  I  went  out  on 
the  prairie  and  had  a  talk.  We  were  very 
close  in  those  days  and  he  talked  over  about 
everything  with  me.  His  ideas  and  mine 
always  seemed  to  run  about  the  same. 

This  day  he  asked  me  what  I  thought  he 
had  better  do — whether  he  had  better  go  into 
politics  or  law.  I  told  him  that  he  would 
make  a  good  lawyer,  but  I  should  advise  him 
to  go  into  politics  because  such  men  as  he 
didn't  go  into  politics  and  they  were  needed 
in  politics. 

I  said,  "If  you  do  go  into  politics  and  live, 
your  chance  to  be  President  is  good." 

He  threw  back  his  head  and  laughed  and 
said:  "Bill,  you  have  a  good  deal  more  faith 
in  me  than  I  have  in  myself.     That  looks  a 
long  ways  ahead  for  me." 
93 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

I  said:  "It  may  be  a  long  ways  ahead,  but 
it  is  not  so  far  ahead  of  you  as  it  has  been  of 
men  that  got  there.  Of  course,  you  have  got 
a  better  start.  You  have  health  and  influen 
tial  friends.  You  are  not  all  by  yourself.  You 
have  a  good  education  and  a  good  head.  You 
have  got  a  better  start  than  a  good  many 
have  that  have  got  there." 

He  told  me  then  that  he  was  going  home 
to  see  about  taking  a  position  that  had  been 
offered  to  him.  He  said  it  was  a  job  that  he 
didn't  want.  It  would  take  him  into  no  end 
of  a  row,  he  said,  into  a  row  all  of  the  time, 
and  it  would  not  pay  because  he  could  make 
more  by  writing ;  but  he  said  he  could  do  a 
great  deal  of  good  in  it. 

I  heard  afterward  that  what  he  referred 
to  was  the  nomination  for  mayor  of  New 
York. 

The  day  after  I  had  my  talk  with  him  on 
the  prairie  he  went  East,  and  a  day  after  that 
Dow  and  I  with  our  families  started  back  to 
Maine.  Our  wives  each  had  a  new  baby  born 
within  a  week  of  each  other,  called  then  and 
ever  since,  even  after  they  were  grown  up, 
the  "Bad  Lands  Babies."  We  were  glad  to 
94 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

get  back  home — gladder,  I  guess,  than  about 
anything  that  had  ever  happened  to  us,  and 
yet  we  were  melancholy,  for  with  all  of  the 
hardships  and  work  it  was  a  very  happy  life 
we  had  lived  all  together.  I  guess  we  have 
all  thought  all  our  lives  since  that  it  was  the 
happiest  time  that  any  of  us  have  known 


CHAPTER  X 

WHEN  Dow  and  I  decided  to  come  back 
home  Roosevelt  loaned  the  cattle  to 
Merrifield  and  the  Ferrises  from  whom  he  had 
originally  bought  Chimney  Butte  Ranch. 
They  were  to  have  half  of  the  cattle  for  the 
raising  and  he  was  to  have  half.  The 
winter  after  we  left  was  the  worst  that 
had  ever  been  known  in  that  region. 
The  snow  was  two  feet  deep  and  the 
cattle  died  by  thousands  and  thousands. 
Fifty  per  cent,  of  Roosevelt's  herd  \yas  lost 
and  I  dare  say  that  it  was  more  than  fifty 
per  cent.  I  do  not  think  that  he  ever 
got  anything  out  of  the  cattle.  I  do  not  be 
lieve  the  men  who  took  care  of  them  for  him 
ever  got  anything  out  of  their  half.  It  must 
have  cost  all  that  the  cattle  were  worth  to 
gather  up  and  run  them. 

I  had  a  letter  from  Theodore  about  it 
next  spring.    "The  loss  among  the  cattle," 
96 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

he  wrote,  "has  been  terrible.  About  the  only 
comfort  I  have  out  of  it  is  that  you  and 
Wilmot  are  all  right.  Sometime  I  hope  to 
get  a  chance  to  come  up  and  see  you  all ;  then 
I  shall  forget  my  troubles  when  we  go  into 
the  woods  for  caribou  and  moose." 

He  went  West  shortly  after  to  look  at 
things  for  himself,  and  when  he  came  back 
he  wrote  me  about  it.  He  had  just  moved 
into  his  house  at  Sagamore  Hill  and  he  wrote 
me  from  there : 

You  cannot  imagine  anything  more  dreary  than 
the  look  of  the  Bad  Lands  when  I  went  out  there. 
Everything  was  cropped  as  bare  as  a  bone.  The  sage 
brush  was  just  fed  out  by  the  starving  cattle.  The 
snow  lay  so  deep  that  nobody  could  get  around;  it 
was  almost  impossible  to  get  a  horse  a  mile. 

In  almost  every  coulee  there  were  dead  cattle. 
There  were  nearly  three  hundred  on  Wads  worth  bottom. 
Annie  came  through  all  right;  Angus  died.  Only  one 
or  two  of  our  horses  died;  but  the  O-K  lost  sixty  head. 
In  one  of  Munro's  draws  I  counted  in  a  single  patch  of 
brushwood  twenty-three  dead  cows  and  calves. 

The  losses  are  immense;  the  only  ray  of  comfort  is 
that  I  hear  the  grass  is  very  good  this  summer.  You 
boys  were  lucky  to  get  out  when  you  did;  if  you  had 
waited  until  spring,  I  guess  it  would  have  been  a  case 
of  walking. 

Please  sign  the  inclosed  paper.      It  is  for  the  wit 
ness  fee  of  Finnegan  &  Co. 
97 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

I  did  not  see  Roosevelt  for  many  years 
after  that,  not  for  sixteen  years— but  I  kept 
hearing  from  him  frequently.  He  used  to 
tell  me  about  his  hunting  expeditions  and  how 
the  cattle  were  getting  on.  They  didn't  get 
on  very  well,  I  guess.  I  have  every  letter  he 
wrote  me. 

After  the  presidential  election  in  1888  I 
got  this  letter  from  him : 

OYSTER  BAY, 
Nov.  17,  1888. 

I  am  feeling  pretty  happy  over  the  election  just  now. 
I  rather  enjoy  going  to  call  on  my  various  mug 
wump  friends.  I  took  a  friend  and  went  up  in  the  North 
Rockies,  to  the  Kootenai  Lake  country,  this  fall, 
on  a  shooting-trip.  It  was  awfully  hard  work.  We 
went  on  foot  with  packs.  After1  a  week  of  it  my 
friend  played  out  completely;  he  had  to  go  back, 
with  Merrifield,  and  did  not  get  anything  at  all.  I 
kept  on,  with  a  white  man  and  an  Indian;  after  a 
while  I  got  some  pretty  fair  hunting;  among  other 
things  I  killed  a  big  black  bear  and  a  fine  bull  cari 
bou.  I  saw  Elaine  the  other  day  and  had  a  pleasant 
talk  with  him. 

A  year  later  he  went  out  West  again,  and 
when  he  got  back  he  wrote  me  about  it: 

Oct.  13, 1889. 

I  went  over  into  the  Idaho  country  and  had  very 
good  luck;  among  other  things  I  killed  a  panther,  two 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

bull  moose,  and  two  grizzlies;  one  of  the  last  made  a 
most  determined  charge,  but  I  stopped  him  with  the 
old  Winchester.  I  still  keep  the  Elkhorn  ranch-house 
open,  but  will  probably  close  it  for  good  next  year.  I 
am  picking  up  a  little  in  the  cattle  business,  branding 
a  slightly  larger  number  of  calves  each  year,  and  put 
ting  back  a  few  thousand  dollars  into  my  capital;  but 
I  shall  never  make  good  my  losses. 

He  used  to  write  me  something  of  his  life 
in  Washington  as  Civil  Service  Commissioner, 
and  of  the  men  in  Congress  from  my  state; 
he  knew  I  would  be  interested.  On  February 
25,  1891,  he  wrote  me  from  Washington: 

I  have  seen  a  great  deal  of  Tom  Reed  this  winter, 
and  my  liking  for  him  has  grown.  He  is  a  very  strong 
man,  and  has  done  more  to  help  along  public  business 
than  any  Speaker  I  have  ever  known.  I  like  Boutelle, 
too,  and  Frye  and  Dingley.  I  have  also  seen  very  much 
of  Elaine.  He  is  certainly  a  very  shrewd  and  able  man 
and  he  has  been  most  hospitable  to  me.  All  the  Maine 
delegation  are  pretty  bright  men,  which  is  more  than 
can  be  said  for  New  York  with  its  large  Tammany  Hall 
contingent. 

Wilmot  Dow  died  that  spring.  Theodore 
had  been  mighty  fond  of  him.  He  wrote  me 
how  sorry  he  was: 

I  cannot  realize  that  he,  so  lusty  and  powerful  and 
healthy,  can  have  gone.    You  know  how  highly  I 
99 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

esteemed  Wilmot.  He  was  one  of  the  men  whom  I 
felt  proud  to  have  as  a  friend  and  he  has  left  his  children 
the  name  of  an  upright  and  honorable  man  who  played 
his  part  manfully  in  the  world.  His  sincerity  and 
strength  of  character,  his  courage,  his  gentleness  to 
his  wife,  his  loyalty  to  his  friends,  all  made  him  one 
whose  loss  must  be  greatly  mourned  by  whoever  had 
had  the  good  fortune  to  be  thrown  intimately  with 
him;  to  his  wife  and  children,  and  to  you,  his  loss  is 
irreparable.  May  we  all  do  our  duty  as  straight 
forwardly  and  well  as  he  did  his. 

That  was  in  May.  In  August  he  wrote 
again,  telling  me  about  the  birth  of  his  daugh 
ter  Ethel.  He  was  still  full  of  thoughts  of 
Will  Dow. 

I  think  of  Wilmot  all  the  time;  I  can  see  him  riding 
a  bucker,  or  paddling  a  canoe,  or  shooting  an  antelope; 
or  doing  the  washing  for  his  wife,  or  playing  with  the 
children.  If  ever  there  was  a  fine,  noble  fellow,  he 
was  one. 

I  did  not  hear  from  him  again  for  a  year 
after  that.  But  in  the  fall  of  1892  he  went 
West  again  and  he  knew  I  would  be  inter 
ested  in  how  he  found  things  out  there,  so 
he  wrote  me  about  it: 

I  spent  three  weeks  out  West  this  year;  first  at  my 
ranch,  and  then  on  a  wagon  trip  down  to  the  Black 
Hills,  during  the  course  of  which  I  shot  a  few  ante- 
100 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

lope.  My  cattle  are  doing  a  little  better  than  they  were. 
The  ranch-house  is  in  good  repair,  but  of  course  it  is 
melancholy  to  see  it  deserted;  I  stayed  there  several 
days.  One  morning,  as  I  was  sitting  on  the  piazza,  I 
heard  a  splashing  in  the  river  (nearly  where  Bill  Rowe 
drowned  Cropears)  and  there  were  three  deer!  They 
walked  up  along  the  sand  to  the  crossing;  and  I  picked 
up  my  rifle,  leaned  against  one  of  the  big  cottonwoods, 
and  dropped  one  in  its  tracks.  We  were  out  of  meat 
and  the  venison  tasted  first  rate.  I  never  expected  to 
shoot  a  deer  from  the  piazza. 

He  was  having  a  pretty  difficult  time  on 
the  Civil  Service  Commission  about  this  time 
with  the  people  who  didn't  believe  in  civil 
service  reform  and  wanted  their  friends 
appointed  to  office  by  the  old  spoils  system 
that  Roosevelt  was  trying  to  put  out  of 
business.  Every  little  while  one  of  the  rows 
he  was  having  would  get  into  the  papers.  I 
wrote  him  once  telling  him;  that  I  was  gla.d 
he  was  keeping  in  fighting  trim  and  l^got 
this  letter  back  from  him:./,  j  j  ?,"; ' ;  :;.•  ;., :  ,• 

WASHINGTON; 
Dec.  28,  1893. 

Yes,  I  did  have  a  savage  time  of  it  with  that  unrecon 
structed  rebel.  He  was  a  real  type  of  the  fire-eater; 
he  always  went  armed  with  a  revolver  and  was  always 
bullying  and  threatening  and  talking  about  his  deeds 
as  a  General  in  the  War,  and  "his  people  "  the  Southern- 
101 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

ers,  and  "his  party"  the  Democrats.  He  was  a  big 
fellow,  and  once  or  twice  I  wished  I  had  your  thews; 
but  as  I  had  not,  I  resolved  to  do  what  I  could  with 
my  own  if  it  came  to  a  rough  and  tumble.  However,  he 
was  like  the  Marquis,  that  time  he  wrote  me  the  note 
when  we  were  all  at  the  ranch.  After  he  had  carried 
his  bullying  to  a  certain  point  I  brought  him  up  with  a 
round  turn,  and  when  he  threatened  I  told  him  to  go 
right  ahead,  that  I  was  no  brawler,  but  that  I  was  always 
ready  to  defend  myself  in  any  way,  and  that,  moreover, 
I  could  guarantee  to  do  it,  too.  Then  he  backed  off.  I 
was  always  having  difficulties  with  him  as  he  was  an 
inveterate  hater  of  Republicans  in  general,  of  North 
erners  and  especially  of  negroes.  However,  I  finally 
drove  him  off  the  Commission;  and  before  this  hap 
pened  had  reduced  him  to  absolute  impotence  on  the 
Commission,  save  that  he  could  still  be  a  temporary 
obstructionist.  I  am  well,  though  I  don't  get  any 
exercise  now;  and  this  has  been  a  very  hard  business 
year. 

When  the  Spanish  War  came  I  was  one  of 
those  who  thought  he  had  no  business  him 
self  to  go  ;t($  '.war.:  I  never  was  a  pacifist 
in  my  life  any'njore  than  he  was.  Neither  of 
u?;v.vkrited!:tQ  pick  "a  quarrel,  but  when  a  quar 
rel  came  we  weren't  the  men  to  dodge  it. 
It  seemed  to  me,  however,  that  it  wasn't 
his  place  to  go  to  Cuba.  I  thought  he  had 
more  important  work  to  do  in  the  Navy  De 
partment  and  I  wrote  him  so.  I  never  ex- 
102 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF  T.  R. 

pected  him  to  answer  my  letter.  The  Navy 
Department  was  a  pretty  busy  place  at  that 
time.  I  knew  that  well  enough  and  I  doubted 
whether  my  letter  would  even  ever  reach 
him.  But  his  answer  came  just  as  quick  as 
the  mails  could  carry  it,  and  was  written  on 
April  23,  1898,  the  very  day  that  Congress 
declared  war.  Here  is  the  letter: 

NAVY  DEPT.,  WASHINGTON. 

I  thank  you  for  your  advice,  old  man,  but  it  seems 
to  me  that  if  I  can  go  I  better  had.  My  work  here  has 
been  the  work  of  preparing  the  tools.  They  are  pre 
pared,  and  now  the  work  must  He  with  those  who  use 
them.  The  work  of  preparation  is  done;  the  work  of 
using  the  tools  has  begun.  If  possible  I  would  like  to 
be  one  of  those  who  use  the  tools. 

Well,  he  was  one  of  those  who  used  the 
tools,  and  pretty  soon  everybody  all  over 
the  country  knew  how  well  he  had  used  them. 
I  never  doubted  that  he  would  make  a  good 
soldier.  He  would  have  made  good  at  pretty 
nearly  anything,  except,  perhaps,  as  a  money 
maker,  and  he  would  have  made  good  at  that, 
too,  if  he  had  ever  cared  to  put  his  mind  to  it. 

The  first  thing  I  knew  I  was  writing  to  a 
man  who  was  Governor  of  New  York.  We 
corresponded  quite  a  good  deal  those  years. 
103 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

He  seemed  to  be  interested  in  getting  my 
point  of  view  on  things,  and  it  happened 
that  we  always  agreed  on  the  fundamental 
things,  just  as  we  had  agreed  when  we  were 
in  Maine  and  Dakota  together.  Separation 
didn't  seem  to  make  any  difference.  I  hadn't 
seen  Theodore  for  twelve  years,  but  our 
minds  seemed  to  run  just  like  a  team. 

Two  weeks  after  he  was  inaugurated  as 
governor  he  wrote  me: 

ALBANY, 
Jan.  18,  1899. 

What  you  say  about  the  reformers  is  exactly  true. 
People  like  to  talk  about  reform,  but  they  don't  want 
to  give  one  hour's  work  or  five  cents'  worth  of  time. 
They  would  much  rather  sit  at  home  and  grumble  at 
the  men  who  really  do  do  the  work,  because  these  men, 
like  all  other  men,  are  sure  to  make  mistakes  sometimes. 

I  have  had  a  pretty  busy  year,  but  I  have  enjoyed 
it  all  and  I  am  proud  of  being  governor  and  am  going 
to  try  and  make  a  square  and  decent  one.  I  do  not 
expect,  however,  to  hold  political  office  again,  and  in 
one  way  that  is  a  help,  because  the  politicians  cannot 
threaten  me  with  what  they  will  do  in  the  future. 

Six  months  later  I  heard  from  him  again: 

OYSTER  BAY, 

July  8, 1899. 

You  are  right  about  the  courage  needed  in  a  position 
like  this  being  quite  as  much  if  not  more  than  that 
104 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

needed  at  San  Juan  Hill.  The  trouble  is  that  right  and 
wrong  so  often  do  not  come  up  sharply  divided.  If 
I  am  sure  a  thing  is  either  right  or  wrong,  why  then  I 
know  how  to  act,  but  lots  of  times  there  is  a  little  of 
both  on  each  side,  and  then  it  becomes  mighty  puz 
zling  to  know  the  exact  course  to  follow. 

In  the  spring  of  1900  I  wrote  him  about  the 
Boer  War,  saying  that  my  sympathies  were 
rather  with  the  British,  and  I  received  this 
letter: 

ALBANY, 
April  24,  i goo. 

As  to  the  Boer  War,  you  have  hit  my  opinion  almost 
exactly.  The  British  behaved  so  well  to  us  during  the 
Spanish  War  that  I  have  no  patience  with  these  people 
who  keep  howling  against  them.  I  was  mighty  glad 
to  see  them  conquer  the  Mahdi  for  the  same  reason 
that  I  think  we  should  conquer  Aguinaldo.  The  Sudan 
and  Matabeleland  will  be  better  off  under  England's 
rule,  just  as  the  Philippines  will  be  under  our  rule.  But 
as  against  the  Boers,  I  think  the  policy  of  Rhodes  and 
Chamberlain  has  been  one  huge  blunder,  and  exactly 
as  you  say,  the  British  have  won  only  by  crushing 
superiority  in  numbers  where  they  have  won  at  all. 
Generally  they  have  been  completely  outfought,  while 
some  of  their  blunders  have  been  simply  stupendous. 
Now  of  course  I  think  it  would  be  a  great  deal  better 
if  all  the  white  people  of  South  Africa  spoke  English, 
and  if  my  Dutch  kinsfolk  over  there  grew  to  accept 
English  as  their  language  just  as  my  people  and  I  here 
have  done,  they  would  be  a  great  deal  better  off.  The 

9  IOS 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

more  I  have  looked  into  this  Boer  War  the  more  un 
comfortable  I  have  felt  about  it.  Of  course,  this  is  for 
your  eyes  only.  I  do  not  want  to  mix  in  things  which 
do  not  concern  me,  and  I  have  no  patience  with  the 
Senators  and  Representatives  that  attend  anti-British 
meetings  and  howl  about  England.  I  notice  that  they 
are  generally  men  that  sympathized  with  Spain  two 
years  ago. 


CHAPTER   XI 

T  DID  not  see  Theodore  for  sixteen  years 
*  altogether  and  when  I  saw  him  again  he 
was  President  of  the  United  States. 

It  was  shortly  after  McKinley  was  assas 
sinated.  He  was  to  come  to  Bangor  to  speak. 
I  did  not  write  to  him;  I  made  up  my  mind 
that  I  would  be  there.  I  suppose  he  knew 
that  I  would  be  there,  just  the  same  as  I 
knew  that  he  would  be  looking  for  me.  When 
he  came  into  the  state  he  began  to  inquire 
for  me.  I  went  to  the  Bangor  House  and  the 
Congressman  from  my  district  was  there 
and  asked  me  if  I  was  not  going  down  to 
meet  the  President's  train. 

I  told  him  no,  there  was  no  use  of  my  going 
down  there.  I  said,  ' '  I  want  to  see  Roosevelt. 
If  I  go  down  there,  I  shall  not  be  able  to, 
there  will  be  so  many  of  you  fellows  around 
him."  So  I  told  him,  "If  he  inquires  for  me, 
107 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

you  will  know  where  I  am;  I'm  going  to  be 
right  here." 

When  he  arrived  at  the  hotel  they  had 
dinner  prepared  there  and  they  wanted  him 
to  go  up  before  dinner  and  make  a  speech 
from  the  balcony.  He  said  he  would,  but 
when  he  stepped  out  on  the  balcony  he  said 
to  the  crowd  that  was  gathered  below  that 
before  he  started  with  a  speech  he  wanted 
to  act  the  part  of  town-crier;  he  wanted  to 
know  if  there  was  anybody  there  who  knew 
Bill  Sewall  and  knew  whether  he  was  there 
that  day  or  not.  There  was  somebody  in 
the  neighborhood  who  did  know  me,  a  man 
who  boarded  with  me,  and  the  Congressman 
told  him  that  he  knew  where  I  was. 

This  man  came  in  to  where  I  was  and  told 
me  that  I  had  been  called  for  and  that  I 
was  wanted  for  dinner. 

Theodore  finished  his  speech  and  then  in 
a  little  room  next  to  the  dining-room  he  met 
us  alone,  my  wife  and  myself  and  Will  Dow's 
wife,  who  had  married  again  and  was  there 
with  her  husband,  Fleetwood  Pride.  We 
talked  over  the  ranch  days  and  it  was  just 
as  though  we  were  back  there  again  together. 
1 08 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

He  had  to  make  another  speech  at  a  town 
near  by  that  afternoon  and  he  took  me  along 
with  him.  We  had  quite  a  little  talk  on  the 
way. 

I  said  to  him,  "Do  you  remember  what  I 
told  you  when  you  were  in  Dakota?'* 

He  said:  "Yes.  How  strange  that  you 
knew  it!" 

I  said:  "It  was  not  strange  to  me.  I  did 
not  expect  to  see  you  made  President  this 
way."  I  said:  "I  did  not  suppose  you  would 
be  shot  into  the  Presidency,  but  I  expected  to 
see  you  President  in  a  different  manner,  and 
I  expect  to  yet.  We  will  do  that  next  time." 

While  he  was  at  Bangor  Theodore  ittvited 
me  to  come  to  the  White  House  during  the 
coming  winter  and  bring  my  family  and  my 
two  brothers  and  their  families  and  Mrs. 
Pride  and  her  husband.  I  reckoned  it  up  at 
the  time;  I  think  he  asked  twenty-five  of  us 
all  in  all.  He  said,  "We'll  all  break  bread  in 
the  White  House." 

Less  than  a  week  later  I  had  a  letter  from 
him  thanking  my  wife  and  Mrs.  Pride  for 
some  hunting  socks  that  they  had  knitted 
for  him  and  then  saying: 
109 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

Now  on  Jan'y  22nd  we  have  the  Judicial  reception 
and  on  February  5  the  Congressional  reception.  I 
would  like  to  have  you  come  down  here  the  day  before 
one  of  these  two  days.  I  think  the  Congressional  re 
ception  you  would  probably  enjoy  most.  If  you  like,  I 
will  have  quarters  engaged  for  you  either  at  a  particular 
house  or  hotel  as  you  tell  me  to  do.  Then  I  will  have 
Franklin  Hall,  who  acts  as  messenger  for  me,  meet  you 
at  the  train  when  you  tell  me  the  train  you  will  come 
by,  and  take  you  first  to  your  quarters  and  then  up  to 
the  White  House;  and  I  shall  have  him  detailed  to 
show  you  all  around  the  sights  here  while  you  are  in 
town.  I  look  forward  to  seeing  all  of  you. 

The  letter  was  typewritten,  but  under  it, 
in  his  own  hand,  he  wrote:  "Come  sure. 
We'll  have  a  celebration.  Your  friend, 
Theodore  Roosevelt." 

My  brothers,  being  very  old,  could  not  go, 
but  my  wife  and  myself,  with  our  two  older 
children  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pride  and  their 
son,  went. 

We  went  to  our  boarding-place  as  he  had 
directed,  and  then  we  went  to  the  White 
House.  He  was  not  there  when  we  arrived, 
for  it  was  in  the  afternoon  and  he  was  out 
riding.  By  and  by  we  heard  a  door  open,  then 
we  heard  his  quick  step  in  the  hall,  and  it 
was  for  all  the  world  like  the  way  he  used 
no 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

to  come  down  the  long  hall  at  Elkhorn 
Ranch;  and  when  he  came  into  the  room  in 
his  riding-clothes  it  seemed  as  though  these 
sixteen  years  that  lay  between  had  never 
been  and  we  were  all  back  in  the  happy 
ranch  days  again. 

He  took  us  all  over  the  White  House  that 
afternoon. 

"How  do  you  like  it,  Bill?"  he  asked  me. 

"Why,"  I  said,  "it  looks  to  me  as  how 
you've  got  a  pretty  good  camp." 

"It's  always  a  good  thing  to  have  a  good 
camp,"  he  said. 

Mrs.  Roosevelt  kind  of  took  the  manage 
ment  of  us  while  we  were  in  town  and  looked 
to  it  that  we  saw  Mount  Vernon  and  all  the 
other  sights.  I  guess  we  had  as  fine  a  time 
as  anybody  that  ever  came  to  Washington, 
and  when  we  seemed  to  attract  a  good  deal 
of  attention,  sitting  in  the  President's  box 
at  the  theater,  I  told  the  ladies,  who  were 
rather  bothered  by  it,  that  it  was  perfectly 
natural — the  people  had  found  something 
green  from  the  country. 

I  saw  him  once  or  twice  again  during  his 
Presidency,  at  the  White  House  and  at 
in 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

Oyster  Bay,  and  every  little  while  out  of 
the  midst  of  the  fight  he  was  in  he  would 
send  me  a  letter  telling  me  something  about 
it.  Here  is  one  of  them,  written  on  September 
22,  1903: 

Sometimes  I  feel  a  little  melancholy  because  it  is 
so  hard  to  persuade  people  to  accept  equal  justice. 
The  very  rich  corporation  people  are  sore  and  angry 
because  I  refuse  to  allow  a  case  like  that  of  the  Northern 
Securities  Company  to  go  unchallenged  by  the  law; 
and  in  the  same  way  the  turbulent  and  extreme  labor 
union  people  are  sore  and  angry  because  I  insist  that 
every  man,  whether  he  belong  to  a  labor  union  or  not, 
shall  be  given  a  square  deal  in  government  employment. 
Now,  I  believe  in  rich  people  who  act  squarely,  and  in 
labor  unions  which  are  managed  with  wisdom  and  jus 
tice;  but  when  either  employee  or  employer,  laboring 
man  or  capitalist,  goes  wrong,  I  have  to  clinch  him,  and 
that  is  all  there  is  to  it. 

In  the  spring  of  1906  I  wrote  him  telling 
him  what  a  fine  job  I  thought  he  was  doing 
in  Washington.  This  was  his  answer: 

June  13,  1906. 

I  am  mighty  glad  you  like  what  I  have  been  doing 
in  the  governmental  field.  I  do  not  have  to  tell  you  that 
my  great  hero  is  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  I  have  wanted 
while  President  to  be  the  representative  of  the  "plain 
people"  in  the  same  sense  that  he  was — not,  of  course, 
112 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

with  the  genius  and  power  that  he  had,  but,  according 
to  my  lights,  along  the  same  lines. 

Just  after  the  Republican  Convention  in 
Chicago  that  nominated  Taft  in  1908  he 
wrote  me  again  : 

June  25,  igo8. 

I  hope  Mrs.  Roosevelt  will  be  better  now,  when  the 
strain  of  the  Presidency  is  off  her.  As  for  me,  I  have 
thoroughly  enjoyed  the  job.  I  never  felt  more  vigorous, 
so  far  as  the  work  of  the  office  is  concerned,  and  if  I 
had  followed  my  own  desires  I  should  have  been  only 
too  delighted  to  stay  as  President.  I  had  said  that  I 
would  not  accept  another  term,  and  I  believe  the  people 
think  that  my  word  is  good,  and  I  should  be  mighty 
sorry  to  have  them  think  anything  else.  However,  for 
the  very  reason  that  I  believe  in  being  a  strong  Presi 
dent  and  making  the  most  of  the  office  and  using  it 
without  regard  to  the  little,  feeble,  snarling  men  who 
yell  about  executive  usurpation,  I  also  believe  that  it 
is  not  a  good  thing  that  any  one  man  should  hold  it 
too  long.  My  ambition  is,  in  however  humble  a  manner 
and  however  far  off,  to  travel  in  the  footsteps  of  Wash 
ington  and  Lincoln. 

I  think  he  did  travel  in  the  footsteps  of 
Washington  and  Lincoln,  and  what  pleased 
me  most  about  him  was  to  see  him,  now  that 
he  was  in  power,  put  into  practice  the  prin 
ciples  he  had  expressed  when  he  was  a  boy 
in  Maine  and  when  he  was  a  young  man  in 
113 


BILL  SEWALL'S   STORY  OF   T.  R. 

Dakota.  It  just  seemed  to  me  that  he  was 
giving  public  expression  to  what  I  had  always 
known  was  in  him.  I  think  I  agreed  with 
pretty  near  everything  that  he  did,  and  when 
he  came  out  for  the  Republican  nomination 
in  the  spring  of  1912  I  was  with  him  with  all 
the  strength  that  I  possessed. 

He  remembered  those  talks  that  we  had 
together,  just  as  I  remembered  them.  On 
May  28,  1912,  he  wrote  me: 

Your  letter  contains  really  the  philosophy  of  my 
canvass.  After  all,  I  am  merely  standing  for  the  prin 
ciples  which  you  and  I  used  to  discuss  so  often  in  the 
old  days  both  in  the  Maine  woods  and  along  the  Little 
Missouri.  They  are  the  principles  of  real  Americans 
and  I  believe  that  more  and  more  the  plain  people  of 
the  country  are  waking  up  to  the  fact  that  they  are 
the  right  principles. 


CHAPTER  XII 

HE  is  dead  now  and  all  the  world  is  seeing 
what  I  saw  forty  years  ago,  and  saying 
about  him  what  I  said  when  we  lived  under 
the  same  roof  in  the  Dakota  days.  I  knew 
him  well,  for  I  saw  him  under  all  conditions. 
He  was  always  the  same  stanch  gentleman, 
always  a  defender  of  right  as  he  saw  it,  and 
he  saw  right  himself.  It  is  no  use  for  me  to 
name  his  good  qualities.  It  is  enough  for  me 
to  say  that  I  think  he  had  more  than  any 
man  I  have  ever  known  and  more  than  any 
man  the  world  has  produced  since  Lincoln. 

I  have  not  read  so  much  as  many  men, 
but  I  have  read  something  about  many  great 
men,  and  I  do  not  think  that  in  nineteen 
hundred  years  there  has  been  any  man  who 
had  so  many  good  qualities  and  knew  how 
to  use  them  as  well  as  he  did.  He  was  a 
fighter,  but  in  this  he  only  resembled  Pe  ter 
Peter  was  always  ready  to  fight.  But  Roose- 


BILL  SEWALL'S  STORY  OF   T.  R. 

velt  was  always  ready  to  live  by  the  Golden 
Rule.  If  he  had  been  in  a  position  of  power 
in  1914  and  if  the  nations  had  been  ready 
to  follow  him,  I  think  we  would  not  have 
had  this  war,  and  a  good  deal  that  may  yet 
come.  There  have  been  many  great  men  in 
the  history  of  the  world,  but  they  have 
almost  always  had  some  bad  defects.  Theo 
dore  Roosevelt's  defects  were  not  great — 
and  such  as  they  were  Time  will  only  soften 
them. 


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